For Me and My Gal

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gene Kelly, one of the great American film stars, I'll be holding a retrospective of his work right here at Go-Go-Rama, including all of his major films. A good place to start is 1942's For Me and My Gal, which was his film debut.

The top-billed star was Judy Garland, who was one of the few female stars of that or any era that can could be billed alone above the title. It was her first "adult" role, that is, in which she played a person who would was not considered a child.

Directed by Busby Berkeley, the film is a tribute to the days of vaudeville, before movies had taken hold of the American imagination, and performers criss-crossed the country in trains, telling jokes, singing and dancing, juggling, and performing magic tricks.  Garland is one of the girl singers and dancers in a comic's act (George Murphy). Kelly is the headliner, a vain and egotistical singer and dancer who immediately puts the moves on Garland, disgusting her.

But when she realizes she and Kelly make a good team (they sing and dance to the title song in a coffeehouse) she leaves Murphy and joins up with Kelly. She falls in love with him, but he's enamored of a classy singer (Martha Eggerth). Eventually Kelly realizes he's in love with Garland, too, but World War I interferes with their plans of one day playing the Palace in New York.

Unlike the Warner Brothers films he was famous for, Berkeley spares us the intricately-choreographed chorines and focuses on character. For Me and My Gal has plenty of songs, but focuses more on character, and thus the last act of the picture, in which Kelly must atone for a selfish deed he commits, makes it emotionally resonant. The two stars have great chemistry (they would reteam for Summer Stock) and I got a little misty at the admittedly overly patriotic ending.

I'm always a little down on musicals because of their corny nature, and this was one has plenty of kernels, but it's also a solid entertainment.