GIRL CRAZY (1943)

This is one of the legendary "Hey, kids, let’s put on a show" movies that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland had a lock on in the early 40s. The novelty here is the setting: an all-male mining college in the middle of the desert. In Manhattan, young Rooney's playboy antics are bringing scandal to the family name and his father decides to send him in exile to Codyville, Arizona at the aforementioned college, hoping that isolation will cure his lackadaisical ways. Rooney doesn't make many friends and is determined to leave until he meets Garland, the town's postmistress and granddaughter of the college's dean.  Rooney falls for her and when the dean discovers that the state legislature wants to close the college down, Rooney and Garland work together, staging a rodeo and beauty contest to publicize the college. There are, of course, romantic entanglements along the way to the happy ending, and the big musical finale.

The plot is not the reason why people watch these movies, it's the music and the stars, and on that level, this film works well. Rooney and Garland (pictured with Tommy Dorsey) have their chemistry down pat—this was their fifth movie together, not counting the Andy Hardy films in which Garland had a supporting role—and are delightful. I chuckled at Rooney's use of double talk slang: When he calls something "snerpy," he explains, "Well, a snerp is a looging with a belt in the back sometimes referred to as a diljo." The music is provided by the Gershwin brothers at their best: "Fascinating Rhythm" (with highlights from "Rhapsody in Blue"), "Embraceable You," "But Not for Me," "Bidin' My Time," and the big finish with "I Got Rhythm." I have to admit, however, that for me, these great songs are not really done justice here. Maybe these legendary songs will always be diminished on the screen.  Still, the film is generally fun. This is a very different take on the original material, a stage show in 1930 with Ethel Merman, then a 1932 film with comics Wheeler & Woolsey that cut out most of the Gershwin score. The earlier film is funnier but this one is more satisfying musically. [DVD]