Watch For Me and My Gal For Free

Best movie ever!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

"The clouds are singing for me and my gal. . ."The title song is pretty much the only memorable part of this movie, sung by Judy Garland and a newcomer to Hollywood, Gene Kelly. He was a Broadway star and made a smash in his film debut. To see all his collaborations with pint-sized Judy, rent The Pirate and Summer Stock for a song-and-dance-filled weekend!The plot of For Me and My Gal is actually very interesting, but since it didn't exactly send the right message in 1942, that's not the part of the movie most people remember. Judy and Gene are a married couple with dreams of stardom, but just when they're about to make it, Gene gets drafted for WWI. While Judy's brother, the fantastic dancer George Murphy who no doubt joined Gene Nelson in the "I'm jealous of Gene Kelly" fan club, fights in the war gladly, Gene doesn't want to give up his career. In a very controversial decision, he purposely injures his hand to avoid the battlefield. If you like WWI or WWII dramas in black-and-white, with some songs and dances thrown in for morale, you won't go wrong with For Me and My Gal. It's romantic, patriotic, and it makes you think about how far you'd go to realize your dreams. Plus it's got Gene Kelly in it.

Judy Garland was just twenty years old when this movie was shot. Just twenty. I enjoyed it immensely because I feel that she was the greatest performer in the history of American show business.Sure, there have been great singers. Yes there have been great dancers and yes there have been great actors but no one besides Judy had all three talents so tightly rolled up into one. I found the storyline quite interesting even though Gene Kelly was the heel of heels but when you see and hear him and Judy in duets...man...that's what makes the world go 'round. How odd. Here we have a picture shot in 1942, 70 years ago and it's better than anything on the screen today. No, it's not a masterpiece but rather terrific wholesome family enjoyment and I highly recommend it to anyone who's disgusted with the stuff now being shown. It's simply top flight entertainment. Incidentally, the musical selections in this film are REAL MUSIC instead of the rock schlock now being heard. I borrowed a bit from Wikipedia to give you the details of that film's songs. * "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", music by Nat D. Ayer, lyrics by A. Seymour Brown, additional lyrics by Roger Edens performed by George Murphy, Judy Garland and others.* "For Me and My Gal", music and lyrics by George W. Meyer, Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz, performed by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland* "When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose", music by Percy Wenrich, lyrics by Jack Mahoney, performed by Kelly and Garland* "After You've Gone", music by Turner Layton, lyrics by Henry Creamer, sung by Judy Garland.* "Ballin' the Jack", music by Chris Smith, lyrics by Jim Burris, sung and danced by Kelly and Garland.* The film also contains portions of a number of songs popular during World War I, including "By the Beautiful Sea", "There's a Long, Long Trail", "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)", "Where Do We Go from Here, Boys", "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", "Goodbye Broadway, Hello France", "(There are) Smiles (That Make Us Happy)", "Oh Frenchy", "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" and "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile".* Two additional songs were intended to be included: "Spell of the Waltz", which was to be performed by Marta Eggerth and a male chorus and "Three Cheers for the Yanks", written by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin. THAT'S CLASS, people. REAL HONEST-TO-GOODNESS CLASS.

Very few people have as auspicious debut in film as Gene Kelly did in For Me And My Gal. After a big success on Broadway in Pal Joey, Judy Garland pushed for him to be signed to an MGM contract and he was given to her as one of her leading men in this film. Kelly proved to be such a success in film that he next went back to Broadway in 1957 as a director of Flower Drum Song. But even Judy or anyone else could not have predicted that Kelly would be the major creative dancing icon he became, the only real rival that Fred Astaire ever had in film. George Murphy who was Kelly's rival for Judy Garland in the film was a good song and dance man, but never created on the screen the way Kelly did.In fact Murphy in his memoirs says that in the original ending he was supposed to wind up with Judy Garland instead of Kelly, that it was changed midpoint during shooting. Of course he didn't like that idea, but looking at the film, it so much works out for the better.Still Judy is the star and she and the rest of the cast get to sing a whole bunch of songs from the teen years of the last century, some numbers identified with the World War I years. She plays a young aspiring Vaudevillian in an act with Murphy, Lucille Norman, and Ben Blue. Kelly is also an aspiring Vaudevillian who wants to rise in the profession, but he will do just about anything to insure that happens and even love for Judy can't quite put a curb on his ruthlessness.In 1942 there will people in the audience who remembered Vaudeville and could reference easily what playing in the Palace Theatre in New York meant. For today's audience it would be the equivalent of a spot on David Letterman or the Tonight Show.Busby Berkeley directed For Me And My Gal and while he did it with a sure hand, the really spectacular numbers he was noted for are strangely absent from this film. The musical scoring by Roger Edens and Georgie Stoll earned the film an Academy Award nomination in that category.Gene Kelly not only made a film debut, but also a debut on record. He and Judy cut a 78 with the title song and a flipside duet of When You Wore A Tulip. Judy was contracted with Decca Records at the time and both sides later came out on albums. The original 78 would be quite a collector's item today.For Me And My Gal is a nice period type musical, the kind that 20th Century Fox was more known for, but for which MGM did a fine job. The whole cast and crew took long bows for this one. In Vaudeville they would have gotten a whole lot of curtain calls.

How much you like this depends upon how much star appeal means to you and how well you like the songs. I wanted to see it for the tap dancing, so this film was very disappointing. It was a lot more singing than dancing, and except for the title song, not the kind of crooning that appeals to me. I was really sorry to see George Murphy get such a weak part and not be able to show off his dancing talents.From what I've read, he was supposed to get Gene Kelly's role but Judy Garland talked the "powers that be" into casting a young Kelly instead. What a mistake. The story was somewhat boring, too, overall. The film is of note since this was Kelly's first starring role. It should have been Murphy's. At least they gave the military boys in this World War I saga a good plug. That kind of patriotism really bugs the liberal wackos here, so the film has merit for that. Why is it that Americans plug the U.S.A. during wartime, the Left calls it "propaganda?" When Liberal causes are shown, it's labeled "thought-provoking." Yeah, right.