The young talents at MGM who captivated everyone’s hearts… Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland. Both absolutely shine in their 1939 film “Babes in Arms” and Warner Bros. has given the fans a fantastic box set celebrating the careers of both talents! A wonderful musical with solid performances from beginning to end. Highly recommended!
Images courtesy of © 2007 Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Babes in Arms (as part of the Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection)
DURATION: 93 minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Full Frame, Black and White, Monaural
RATED: UNRATED
COMPANY: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Released on September 25, 2007
Directed by Busby Berkeley
Written by Jack McGowan, Kay Van Riper
Play by Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers
Produced by Arthur Freed
Cinematography by Ray June
Edited by Frank Sullivan
Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons
Set Decoration by Edwin B. Willis
Costume Design by Dolly Tree
Starring:
Mickey Rooney as Micky Moran
Judy Garland as Patsy Barton
Charles Winninger as Joe Moran
Guy Kibbee as Judge John Black
June Preisser as Rosalie Essex
Grace Hayes as Florrie Moran
Betty Jaynes as Molly Moran
Douglas McPhail as Don Brice
Rand Brooks as Jeff Steele
Leni Lynn as Dody Martin
John Sheffield as Bobs
Henry Hull as Maddox
Barnett Parker as William Bartlett
Babes in Arms is considered the quintessential Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical. Freely adapted from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart Broadway hit of the same name, it marked the producing debut of Arthur Freed, who would go on to create some of the greatest musical films in motion picture history. To direct the film, Freed hired the legendary Busby Berkeley, who had recently migrated from Warner Bros. to Metro, and Berkeley neatly handled the film’s direction and choreography, with the results being a total sensation. The film went into production immediately after the completion (but before the release of) The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Oz fans will be amused to find “The Wicked Witch of the West†actress Margaret Hamilton, once again taking on the role of screen villainess. The semi-autobiographical plot features Rooney playing Mickey Moran, the talented son of a vaudeville team, who rounds up all his fellow child entertainers to stage a fund-raiser show to help out his financially-strapped folks. Variety called it “a topflight filmusical entertainment.â€
Warner Home Video’s new DVD presents the home video premiere of the film as originally released in 1939. Previous video incarnations represented the film as it was cut for reissue after the end of World War II, when M-G-M removed a charming sequence featuring Mickey and Judy impersonating Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the time, Metro felt the public would not want to see the recently deceased F.D.R. parodied on film, but unfortunately, the studio did not retain any film materials from this deleted number, as it had been cut out of all negatives and prints. Using a recently discovered collector’s print as source material, the “Roosevelt†sequence (a/k/a “My Dayâ€) has been permanently restored to the film.
In celebration for the musicals of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Warner Bros. has released a fantastic five-DVD set titled “Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection. A celebration for two young talents who would become a popular onscreen couple and would go on to make several wonderful musicals together.
One of those films was the 1939 film “Babes in Arms”, the first complete MGM film directed by Busby Berkeley for Warner Bros. and based on the 1937 Broadway musical. The film would break box office records and was among the top grossing films that year. In fact, the film was so popular that Mickey Rooney was nominated for a 1940 Academy Award for “Best Actor” and Roger Edens and George Stoll were nominated for Best Score (note: It was a competitive award year for “Babes in Arms” as Judy Garland’s other popular film that year, “The Wizard of Oz”, was also nominated for several awards).
The DVD release of “Babes in Arms” included only on this DVD box set contains a parody sequence of Mickey Rooney as President Franklin Roosevelt and Judy Garland as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt which was removed after the death of President Roosevelt in 1945. A sequence which was once thought as lost, was found on 16mm film and put back into the film for this DVD release.
“Babes in Arms” is a film about Mickey Moran (played by Mickey Rooney) and Patsy Barton (played by Judy Garland). Boyfriend and girlfriend who are a wonderful musical team as Mickey played the piano and wrote the songs, while he and Patsy would sing together.
Both were born from hardworking parents working in vaudeville and like many children who grew up with performing parents, many didn’t go to school because they were performing on stage and traveling. But as entertainment was going towards film and talkies, not many people were as interested in vaudeville anymore and thus, the parents of the children make a decision to travel again and perform vaudeville on stage and hopefully make money. But unfortunately, because the children aren’t working, a social worker, Martha Steele (played by Margaret Hamilton) from the welfare department is concerned about the children and want them to be disciplined, to go to school for an education and for the older kids to be part of a work farm. But the children vow to work and help their families.
So, Mickey Moran comes up with an idea to put on his own theatrical act titled “Babes in Arms” but in order to do that, money would be needed. When both Mickey and Patsy meet up with former child star Rosalie Essex (played by June Preisser), Rosalie wants to be part of the show. Seeing as Rosalie is wealthy and she probably could finance the show, Mickey goes to meet with her and sure enough, she’s willing to put money down. But in return, she would have to be the main star.
This put Mickey in quite a conundrum because he has been working with his girlfriend Patsy to be the lead vocalist but knows that the only chance to finance the show is by giving Rosalie the main part. Will Mickey choose his love Patsy or will he choose Rosalie?
“Babes in Arms” would feature legendary songs such as “Good Morning” by Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown, “I Cried For You” by Freed/Gus Arnheim/Abe Lyman, “Opera vs. Jazz” and Broadway number “God’s Country”.
VIDEO:
“Babes in Arms” is featured in 1:33:1, Black and White. For the most part, the picture quality for this 70+ year-old-film looks fantastic. You can see dust and speckles but not as numerous as most classic films. Warner Bros. did a fantastic job remastering this film.  Blacks are nice and deep, grays and whites pop. If there was any problems, it was near the end during the minstrel segment where picture quality becomes slightly aged, blurry and lines from the negative can be seen. Not sure if that was because of the addition of the Roosevelt scenes but for the most part, “Babes in Arms” has a beautiful transfer for DVD.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Babes in Arms” is featured in monaural and in English. Dialogue is clear and understandable and music sounds good via Dolby Digital 1.0. I preferred to watch this film with all channels set to stereo for a more immersive soundscape.
Subtitles are presented in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Babes in Arms” comes with the following special features:
- Introduction by Mickey Rooney – (3:27) Mickey Rooney talks about the making of “Babes in Arms” and working with Judy Garland.
- Commentary by historian John Fricke – A wonderful, in-depth commentary by film historian John Fricke who gives us all the detail and behind-the-scenes of “Babes in Arms”.
- Vintage Our Gang short – “Duel Personalities” – (9:54) An MGM “Our Gang” short featuring Alfalfa getting hypnotized and challenging Butch to a swordfight.
- Classic cartoon – “The Mad Maestro” – (7:40) A classic MGM cartoon about an animal conductor and his animal musicians.
- 1939 Newsreel with Mickey and Judy – (4:03) Featuring four newsreels which include Judy Garland celebrating her birthday, Mickey Rooney taking part in a diving competition, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland with the mayor of New York City in regards to the World’s Fair and Mickey & Judy promoting the March of Dimes.
- Audio-only bonuses:
o Leo Is on the Air radio promo – (4:43) “Leo is on the Air” radio promo for “Babes in Arms”.
o 3 different radio shows with Rooney and Garland – Featuring lengthy radio show features which include the 9/24/1939 Gulf Screen Guild Theater Radio Broadcast (28:18), the 11/9/1941 Gulf Screen Guild Theater Radio Broadcast (27:59) and the “Good News of 1938” Radio Show (13:40). - Theatrical Trailer – (3:30) The original theatrical trailer.
“Babes in Arms” is a very entertaining film and definitely shows the musical strengths of both Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Garland who shines during her vocal performances while Mickey Rooney literally steals the film with his acting and dancing. The music was catchy, addictive and enjoyable and if anything, you could see how tremendous the chemistry of Rooney and Garland was onscreen.
Aside from Rooney and Garland, you also get to her the operatic performance of Betty Janes as Mickey Moran’s sister Molly who has a memorable performance along with Judy Garland via “Swings vs. Opera”. Especially June Preisser, who shows us that she can do some amazing, flexible performances that looks as if it was a mix of gymnastics and even capoeira.
But the performances are enjoyable and fun to watch. But I must warn those who are sensitive to racial portrayals of Blacks via the use of “Blackface” (all vaudeville children including Rooney and Garland’s characters during the performance of “Babes in Arms” are performing a minstrel act and thus all are in Blackface), may want to bypass this film. It’s important to note that these type of performances were common in the 1910 through the 1930’s and although the film was released in 1939, the film is about the slowdown of Vaudeville acts more than a decade earlier and how it has affected the families of these performers.
Overall, if you are a fan of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland’s work, the collection is a magnificent DVD set. Aside from the special features I mentioned above, the box set comes with “Babes in Arms”, “Strike Up the Band”, “Babes on Broadway”, “Girl Crazy”, a bonus DVD, a dozen or more still photographs, a mini book and more. As for the “Babes in Arms” DVD itself, you get a wonderful commentary track, an Our Gang MGM short, lengthy radio shows and more.
“Babes in Arms” is a wonderful musical and features the two popular young talents for MGM at the time. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland had remarkable chemistry and their performance on “Babes in Arms” really show off these two talents.  The movie is worth watching but the box set for the “Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection” is definitely, highly recommended!