Good evening and welcome to the Hollywood bab Bilonians. Hello, Hello, hello
friends. This is your happy Hollywood History host mister Ben Burke. Back today
with that wonderful singer, actor, and dancer of the Off Broadway and Broadway
stage, Miss Ruby Rakos, as we continue to discuss Vincent Minnelli's charming holiday
musical Meet Me in Saint Louis from MGM in nineteen forty four, starring Judy
Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Lucille Brimmer, Leon Names, Mary Astor, Marjorie
Main, Harry Davenport, and Tom Drake. Only on the Hollywood bab Bilonians
There, do you have, like any other notes, anything that you really
like to share? I would hear the film itself. I think my favorite
part is probably Margaret O'Brien is twoty. She's so strange, so morbid,
you know, with giving her dolls funerals and bearing them in the backyard and
all the stuff with the Halloween was very strange. I was Halloween in nineteen
oh three, involving like a bonfire in the street and like kids dressed as
like little hoboes and like throwing flower on. I know, the flower part.
But yeah, throwing flower at people. But I didn't I didn't know
that. I mean, it was it was like Lord of the Flies out
there. I rap on it. Yes, that's something that actually happened,
because it was like they were all cross dressed. Yeah, all of these
little children were cross dressed. It looks like a riot that we've seen in
recent years, you know, and these children go out and they try to
kill the neighbors that they that they hate most with flower. And I know
that sequence was almost cut from the film, but it did. It did
wonders for Margaret O'Brien. Yeah, oh man, a little Margaret O'Brien,
she's just she's just a trip. Yeah, but I have to say,
I mean the scene, you know, after Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
where she runs out into the snow and beats up the the snowmen that they
built. I mean, what did they do to that girl to make her
break down like that? Because I was like this, I mean, no
five six year old has the acting capabilities to do that, and it wouldn't
be odd even today really for a child actor to be I don't know,
kind of traumatized into having that sort of response. I mean it was really
it was really intense. I mean, yeah, she does she kills those
snowmen. She takes that bit. Does she take a stick? Not a
baseball bat? But yeah, I think it was a stick, but like
just like her, like heaving saw just like I mean, I was like,
this is a actual five year old having a complete meltdown, right,
It's like you're going full Betty Davis on ayah yeah. And so all I
could think was like, what did they do to her to make her do
that? Well, and that leads us to another interesting point. They told
so Margaret O'Brien, I believe, had a little pit bulldog or some little
puppy that she had just gotten. And Margaret O'Brien's mother told Vince Minelli everybody
that was working with her on that set, in order to get her to
cry, you tell her that this little puppy has died. And that's how
they got her to cry, which I'm like, why would you tell a
child that. Of course they did that, Okay, that makes sense,
yes, and that's why she was Yeah, oh man, at five or
six, if I had a puppy that died, I would have had a
full emotional melt down to and in acting, all you have to I mean,
honestly, there's a I mean, kids have such a wild imagination.
I mean, all you'd have to tell her is like it pretend that he
did die, Like he's fine, but like how would you feel if he
did? Like what would you miss? And like kids have a really good
imagination. Like that's all acting is right. You didn't have to, you
know, I mean you didn't have to convince her that her poppy was actually
dead. Yeah, And Margaret had been signed to the studio at four or
five, several years before she her mother took her to the studio, got
her into the office of like mayor or Freed, and Manelli was in the
office and she was dressed in this little plaid kilt and little cap and she
was giving this big scene and Manelli was like, wow, she is amazing.
Now you would be like, oh, come on, this is ridiculous.
They signed her to the studio. They started her in several I think
Journey for Margaret was one of them, in the Canterville Ghost, which were
big, big vehicles for her. And also MGM was a test with Shirley
Temple which they never could get who at one time, I think was supposed
to play Dorothy, but they couldn't get her from Fox. Yeah, Margaret
O'Brien, I know that. Vincent Minnelli said that because after the first several
years that Margaret was at Metro, she had worked with their resident acting coach,
and when Margaret came on set, she was this big, huge Shakespearean
actress. Everything was over the top. And Manelli said that added a lot
of time that he had to sit and work with her and work out all
of these this big, big performance that she was getting because she had worked
with I can't remember her name, but she was the resident acting coach at
MGM. The older she got, the less money her film's made, which
is, you know, kind of common for a lot of child stars.
So I know that a lot of the Sally Benson stories, which are the
thirty five thirty one Kensington Having Avenue stories, a lot of the sequences were
true to life. Oh. Also talking about Margaret O'Brien, John Fricky in
the commentary that I was just listening to. So the sequence, the Halloween
sequence where Margaret O'Brien claimed that she has been beat up by the boy next
door, you know, and then Judy goes over and gives him a piece
of her mind, which I think is one of the great uh, one
of the great sequences in classic film musicals, because it's like, yeah,
we're not gonna take it anymore. I am woman, hear me roar.
In the book The Kensington Avenue Stories, the sequence where Tudy was beaten up
really took place, and she was beaten up by the boy next door.
But things such as this, like little girls being beaten up by older,
older men. You know, even you could drop the R word in there,
that four letter nasty little R word. We're not talked about a whole
lot. So this was something where Twudy really was beaten up by the boy
next door. Her father went over and had a talk with the boy next
door's father about what had happened, and he was like, oh, I'll
talk with him, and they exchanged the guards and that's all that happened,
you know. And that is the only time that the boy next door came
into The Kensington Avenue Stories. It was the idea that one of the girls
was madly in love with him came from the mind of the screenwriters, which
I found fascinating. So this, Yeah, so this rapist boy next door
in the movies, well, in the movie, Judy Garland's love interest was
really this rapist boy next door in the books, which is, oh,
yeah, I know, we're unpacked. We're we're sounding woke now, aren't
we. They would have yeah, they would have never put that in the
movie. No, no, that No, that would have been a lot.
But that, I mean, that is really the darkest sequence in the
entire film, because that's very dramatic sequence for a family at that time.
I know, families at that time lost children at a higher rate than they
do now, but for them to lose a member of the family like that,
and you could see that in the movie, they're all, you know,
overwhelmed at the thought that Tutty something could have happened to Tudy and anyway
it might have happened to Agnes. I know a lot Sally Benson based the
character of herself on Agnes, or Agnes played out Agnes with Sally Benson in
the books, but because Joan Carroll was less known, everything that happened to
Sally Benson happened instead of to Agnes. That happened to Tutty. In the
movie because Margaret O'Brien was the bigger star. So do you have any things
about this film that you do not? Like most of the music, I'm
not a big fan of other than like the original, like other than like
you know, the Boy next Door Trolley's song, Hi Yourself a marry Little
Christmas. Like everything else is just yeah. It's those like those songs they
come up with to do or you know, they pull out of you know,
some old book to do for like a big dance number. You get
a lot of that with like you know, stuff like Strike Up the Band.
You get like really weird songs that they decide to do for like a
big dance number. The La Conga, Yes exactly. Oh I do love
that movie. Yes. Drummer Boy is like, oh so amazing. I
mean Nicky Rudy is an such a good drummer. Yes. So the fact
that like everyone's using someone else's trumpet this really grosses me. I know,
I was gonna like no one's upset about it. That Like the Paul Whiteman
Jazz Band is like, all right, they sound pretty good, and it's
like he's using my trombone. It's like five thousand dollars right, it's like
they're putting all of their saliva and DNA into these instruments. Why aren't you
angry? But it is. It is a great number, so I could
see why they'd let it slide. Yeah, So those those numbers are not
my favorite. Yeah. I think that's probably my least favorite part as those
like bigger yeah group numbers that aren't you know the trolley song basically yes,
yeah, and I mean I can see that, I know, skip skip
to Mailou wasn't written by Blaine and Martin, even though they're credited with writing
the song. It had been a folk song for some times. They're the
people that came up with the arrangement for that. It's just precarious film because
it's made so well and so beautifully, but at the same time, for
our sensibilities today, it's like it doesn't seem like it has much of a
plot. It's about you know, privileged white family living in turn of the
century. Yeah, turn of the century, Saint Louis, and it is.
It's a very beautiful film. It's very well constructed. Judy. It's
one of the very first times that I think she really really got to show
off her talent as a very you know, impressionable young woman with great expression,
and she had beautiful eyes which you never really had seen before. So
yeah, it's the it's the white eyeliner on the on the waterline really just
like makes her eyes pop well. And I didn't even know otis the white
eyeliner until John Frickey said something about it on the commentary and I was like,
oh, now I noticed it. Yeah, in technicolor, you see
everything. Boy, were they going to show you color. There was one
quote that I now can't find who said it, but it was about the
costume design because the costume designer, uh Irene Sheriff. Yes, I mean
she was trying to you know, be very Oh, I found it.
I found the quote. Okay, her attempts at the nineteen oh three cosume
design and like trying to be like realistic and like historically accurate. Arthur Freed
was like, how could you have a star with no cleavage? I heard
that. Yeah, yeah, so I mean they found a way to do
it, but well he said that, he said that Mary Astory, you
would believe it on Mary Astor, but you couldn't have an ingenuine a film
with no bosom, you know, right, which was which is what he
said? Always coming back to sex. Yeah, well, whereas you know,
they used to be upset about Judy having a bosom, so exactly how
the how the turns of tabled? I know they pressed it down for Wizard
of Oz and now they're trying to and earlier movies too well, because they
thought she was fat. That's the problem. But that red dress she wears
at the ball is gorgeous. I love that red dress. And that is
one of Manelli's favorite colors. Was red? You what I mean? And
you can tell in the Pirates she's in red. Yeah. Any in Brigadoon
that Manelli directed, uh centuries and like the big pivotal number is in red
and Gigi there is so much red that you can barely stand it. And
movies, well, and red is my favorite color. It's gorgeous and I
think he uses it very effectively most of the time. And bells are ringing
the there's a big party sequence where Judy Holiday wears a red dress. You
know his on she news in the films. Really in the big pivotal scene,
it was like he was going to always have them at red. And
then throughout this entire movie. You can tell Reddis's favorite color because the entire
house, all of the drapes are red. There's red lamp shades everywhere there,
you know, and it gives it a very beautiful, beautiful look.
I don't think red was quite used in technicolor as it had been in this
film. Irene Sheriff, who is fabulous. She designed so many costumes from
Minnelli during her time at Metro, and then she went over to Fox.
She designed the costumes for The King and I for Oh Not Oh. She
designed him for Hello Dolly, which actually in Hello Dolly, a lot of
the extras are wearing costumes from Meet Me in Saint Louis. So anyway,
she was great at She was great at kind of period pieces or like big,
big musical things, and she's one of my favorite costume designers for Metro.
But she's another one that said that during this time, Mayor kept calling
Judy his little hunchback, and he said every time he said that, I
wanted to hit him as hard as I can, because he said, she
said, you know what that does to a little girl that already thinks she's
so ugly. I Dio realized that he was still calling her that at this
point, well, yeah, and that's what well, and it's like,
why are you Vinson Minelli just proved your point wrong. She's not a little
hunchback. She's gorgeous. Yeah, it was those those earlier films, because
I mean she's like thirteen, you know, she's going through puberty. She's
also four to eleven. You know, she's a very small person, right,
and you know, because she wasn't I don't know Alana Turner, she
was. You know, they didn't want to they didn't want to see her.
And I honestly think like her posture wasn't bad. It was just I
think around people who she couldn't be herself with or she wasn't safe with,
was really, you know what sort of brought her into herself. Because when
you see watch her perform, and you know, around the people that you
know, know and love her and care about her, you know, she's
fine. She's very open. From what all I've heard is she was very
open, she was very ready. She was a very funny person and great
person to be around. But yeah, she I think she was built differently
than the glamour girls at MGM because you know, she had I've heard that
she had a shorter torso than most and longer legs than most, and that,
you know, when she was trying to grow into herself as a teenage
girl, that you know, that's when they were giving her the hard time.
They have. Bob's Burgers has taught us anything. I don't know.
If you watch Bob's Burgers, there's a character on there, Tina. It's
like, you know, yeah, yeah, it's like we're I feel like
we're all Tina at parts, but Judy starting out at the studio was more
Tina than most. So yeah, that's that's a good Yeah. Yeah,
I mean, why would you ever talk to a little child that way?
I was going to say something else. At this point a grown woman.
She was five years old. She was an adult, which I feel when
I was twenty, I was still very much a child, and I don't
Yeah, but the fact that people keep calling her a little girl, like
even like Joe Mankowitz is like calling her that, you know, she's a
very like you know, what did you say, like messed up little girl
or broken little girl? I was like, a you're in a relationship with
her, right, she's an adult? Yes, you know, she's like
eighteen nineteen, So like, sure she's not, like, you know,
a full grown woman, but she's still not a little girl exactly. She's
much bigger than that. By yeah, anyway, we could talk about it.
It just makes it makes me angry, and I feel like a lot
of that went on. It still goes on today unfortunately. But I mean
metro Oh, I was gonna say something about Lana Turner two oh, Judy
told I think Joan Crawford that she felt like a little Pollywog because Joan and
Judy were at the studio at the same time and they were good friends.
But also she told her every time because she tried. When Lana got to
the studio in thirty eight, Judy tried to befriend her and she told her
that she was in love with Mickey Rooney. Lana Turner went on to date
Mickey Rooney for a long time. She told her that she was in love
with Artie Shaw. Then she turned around, what she's with Arti Shaw.
So it was almost like Lana was just like going after guys that Judy wanted,
and she even while Lana even went after Tyrone Power after Judy was through
with him, and she Lana said that Tyrone was the great lost love of
her life. Also, wasn't Tyrone Power also a closeted gay man. He
was bisexual? Yeah, and so he oh, okay, he was.
Yeah. He slept with a lot of the women and a lot of the
men. God, so he had them both. And I know Judy ran
off with him at one point. She did, and I believe, yeah,
she did run She tried to run off with several people. And she
told him because his wife was not going to let Judy marry him, his
Tyrone Power's French actress wife was not going to give him a divorce. So
Judy told the French actress wife that she was going to have a baby,
which people don't know if is real or not, but you know, eventually
she said, you know, well I've lost the baby. And she did
that to Joe Mankowitz also, and Joe kind of played along because he he
said in his memoirs, he ked felt sorry for so anyway, he played
along with the baby. And then he finally asked her to do another pregnancy
test and she, you know, she it did not come up positive.
I just thought, talking about Lana, I don't know if you've seen many
films with Lana Turner. There are several good ones, such as Green Dolphin
Street, The Bad and The Beautiful Imitation of Life. But Esther, a
lot of the women at Metro did not like Lana Turner. You know who
Esther Williams is, or you've heard of her before, Yes, yes,
big technicolor aquacade musical star at Metro for a long time. And they all
they all had to the technicolor stars had to deal with the thing before they
shot, called a lily, which was a very very heavy, big piece
of slate, and they had to hold that while they focused all of the
the color balanced the entire picture, because technicolor is just it's it's really really
ripe. It is like colors on cocaine. And I think it's gorgeous,
but sometimes it's just too much. But Esther Williams said she would have to
stand in the swimming pool and hold it over her head for like twenty minutes
while they color balanced everything. And she said, you know, I often
wondered what Lana Turner was holding while I was holding this damn slate she and
you know, she said, I knew what she was holding and it was
Louis B. Mayer's dick. A lot of people did not like Lana,
but she she was very ambitious and you know, she knew how to get
what she wanted exactly. And I yeah, I mean I wish I had
Lona, That's how you know. Unfortunately he had kind of do it at
that time exactly. And that's that's another problem. Talking about Judy more also,
like we talked about I talked we did all about Eve like two episodes
ago, and look reading in the Life of Joan Crawford, a lot of
these women had to be They knew that it was a man's world and they
had to be smarter than that because they were business people that had to keep
themselves going, I feel like, and they had great longevity with their careers.
But with Judy, I feel like she was just kind of thrown into
it and she did not exactly want I feel like she was a very intelligent
person. If she wanted to have that kind of be smarter than the men
that were running the show, she could have. But at the time she
just really didn't care or she didn't exactly want to. I know that after
forty four or forty five she had gone to New York City with Vincent Manelli
and saw New York. She loved New York. And then somebody interviewed her
shortly after that and they said, well, what's next for Judy Garland.
She said, well, after my contract is up in forty six, I'm
going to move to New York and star on Broadway. After meet Me and
Saint Louis came out, the executives were like, ah, this cannot happen
because she is really a gold mine now. So when she fell in love
with mine and they got married, the studio, the studio really pushed well,
it was you know, Manelli became one of those other people under contract
that was to keep an eye on Judy and keep her in line. So
the fact, you know, by the time she got to the Pirate and
she didn't want to be at the studio, she was you know, she
she had bad, bad postpartum depression, so that that was another thing that
just pushed her. She didn't care whether she was there or not. She
was just kind of being forced to be there at times, especially later in
her years at Metro. Yeah, yeah, I yeah, I can't help
but think she might have been happier going to New York, right, I
mean I mean her concert, I mean her time on stage. I mean
that was when she started her concert career. It really brought her back to,
you know, her roots of like vaudeville and performing for an audience,
and was really, you know, the reason she loved performing was the response
from the audience, and you don't you don't get that in movies for sure.
And she had started out, you know, on the stage in Vodevillain.
I think she loved the audience and she knew the audience loved her,
and that was taken away from her when she was given the big studio contract.
But I wanted to ask you, since I have you here, if
you have any favorite films of Judy's. Oh, I mean, I love
Love finds Andy Hardy. That's probably my favorite. I just love that film
so much. She's so cute and just her and Mickey together are just is
just so perfect. Love finds Andy Hardy is probably my number one. I
also I also really liked Strike Up the Band. I wish they would dress
her in something less hideous. It's like the same design dress with a big
puppy sleep and she's like in a variation of that dress and the whole film,
and it's so ugly, like dresses throughout the entire Yeah. Yeah,
and like she wears a like a sort of simp. The red dress in
Meet Me and Saint Louis is like a similar design, but it's flattering.
Yes, it's like it creates this beautiful torso well. It was like it
was like, if we make her shoulders bigger, her waist will look smaller
or something like. It's just so hideous. It's so hideous. But I
love that movie. I also really like Everybody Sing. That's a really fun
one. It's harder to find. I think the only way I've ever watched
it is I like it was in parts on YouTube. I don't even know
if it's still up anymore. Yeah, And that's how I'd watched it,
Other than the scene where she disguises herself in blackface to get a job at
the as a singing at the singing restaurant. That one's weird. That part's
unnecessary. She could have just put on a fake mind stash or something,
right, But at least it's not like Babes and Arms, where you get
through the whole film and then suddenly the show they've been putting on this whole
time was a minstrel show and like hints, no clues, and suddenly the
last like twenty five minutes is all blackface. Yeah, that came out of
nowhere. Well, I mean Babes and Okay, So what I remember about
Babes and Arms like the entire show that they're trying to put together in the
barn. There's a giant storm that tears down the barn where they're trying to
put on this minstrel show, so they don't get to put on the minstrel
show. I haven't seen Babes and Arms in a long time. I know.
At the end of Babes on Broadway, which is one of my it
was one of my favorite ones until you get to the end and that rousing
waiting for the Robberty Lee in your life and she sings FDR Jones and uh
yeah, and it's just like, oh man, this is such great music
and such great performances, but I'm gonna throw the Confederacy in there just to
ruin it, and not until the end, so you have no clue what
you're getting yourself into until the end of the movie, and it just pops
about of nowhere well, And I think that's that Waiting for the roberty Le
number is the most spectacular, not spectacular in the in like the good sense,
but has the spectacle of any Mickey and Judy musical number outside of Oh
I Got Rhythm, Yeah, which is just it's just a shame. But
I mean, we're not trying to cancel these movies. So many people are
like whoop, people are trying to get They're hard to watch. That's the
problem is, like I I just it's a hard time watch. It's like
I'll watch to the point where it gets weird and then I'm like I can't
enjoy it. It's so uncomfortable. And I was like, if you close
your eyes, it sounds really nice. Right. But but back to everybody
saying, I mean, you've got Fanny Brice in that movie and there's a
scene on a bus where they all like are running around. I don't remember
the song that they sing on the bus, but I really love that scene.
That movie is is really great. I really love that movie. And
then Judy and Fanny Brice went on to do I mean, Fanny Bryce the
baby Snokem's character was, you know, a big thing and then she and
Judy went on to kind of continue that little act that they do in the
movie on the radio for a long time too, Yes, which is great.
Yeah, I haven't seen everybody sing in a hot second. I haven't
seen it in years. But doesn't Billy Burke, who plays Glinda play her
mother in that. Yes, Billy Burke is in it. Oh and she
also also it starts with her getting kicked out of school. That's what starts
the whole thing. She gets kicked out of school. And its swing,
mister Mendelssohn's swing, which I, oh my god, I love that song.
We do the that song in Chasing Rainbows as well. And just at
the end she you know, they get caught and she just sort of presses
her nose up against the glass door before she leaves. Is so cute.
That movie is really, really wonderful. Love finds Andy Hardy is probably number
one. I do like Strike Up the Band. I just can't stand the
costumes. Yeah, because it is a It is a great movie. It
has some La conga and drummerman. Drummer Man is probably my favorite number of
any Mickey and Judy for sure. I mean, I don't know how Mickey
Rooney and the Conga didn't like just I mean, he must have had whiplash
after that number because the way he's like flinging his head around. Oh my
god. But yeah, no, that's yeah. I mean a lot of
people don't realize that mckier Ronnie was an amazing drummer. Mmmm but that ye
yeah, yeah, he played the xylophone in that too. And then they
also have that whole sequence with the fruit, the like stop motion fruit story
of our love Affair. Yeah, I know, which is You wonder how
difficult was that to shoot back in nineteen forty. Honestly, it must have
been ridiculous. But yeah, I mean we have Arthur Freed also to thank
for those movies because he had well a little bit on Arthur Freed. People
don't, I don't think realize that, you know, the MGM musicals that
we know and love today are because of Arthur Freed. He had been a
songwriter at MGM in the late twenties with his songwriting partner Nashio Herb Brown,
and he had always really wanted to produce film musicals, and finally he got
Mervin Leroy, who was one of his friends, came over to Metro from
Warner Brothers, and they had always loved Wizard of Oz, always wanted to
put together a musical film Wizard of Oz, so they got to do that
and showcase Judy. I think Arthur freed despite him mistreating her, because I
know it eventually got to the point where he was just shoving her around and
picking her up and throwing her into projects. He didn't care how Judy felt.
It was if she could get the work done or not, if she
could make him money. But I think he really was one that recognized talent
and good talent, and that's why, you know, when he started producing
films, starting with the Wizard of Oz and going into Mickey Rooney Judy Garland's
films, he started to create his own unit, his own production unit at
MGM, which is what led to some of Judy's great technicolor classics at Metro.
But yeah, yeah, I think everybody should go watch the at least
go watch Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy and Love finds Andy Hardy because
those Strike Up the Band I believe is actually on HBO Max right now because
TCM has it. Yes, well, yes, I was like tinkering around
there and a lot of Andy Hardy movies are there, except none of the
ones with Judy in it. I don't think, Well, it's just like
a bunch of Andy Hardy movies that I've never seen and I have no interest
in watching because she's not right. Well, oh, no debutant. It
has Andy Hardyman's debutant. Yes, that's a good one too. I'm Nobody's
Baby is a really good song alone. The way that song she does really
beautifully and it sort of turns the tables because she's less of the ugly duckling
girl next door and Mickey Rooney is sort of on her turf in New York
and he sort of like realizes that she's like, you know, a really
like cool and interesting person and you know, she has the upper hand,
right, even though he does, of course fall in love with a debutante
but who is a friend of Judy's and is like in on it and like
gets him turned back towards Judy exactly. Yeah, oh yeah, and she
yeah, she yes. I okay, So I started because for some reason
they put all of these Andy Hardy movies on HBO Max. I know that,
Well, yeah, I started, Andy HARDI Meat's Debutante, which I
had seen a lot before, and so I started it and I was like,
I have seen this at least ten times. I don't think I can
watch it again, but it's a great movie. Definitely go watch it.
I know that one of John Fricky's good friends over at Warner Brothers is George
Feldenstein, who I love because he is the film historian at Warner Brothers who
owns now the Vintage RKO Library where like Ginger Rogers and Fredis Stare were in
the thirties, they own the pre nineteen eighty six MGM library, and they
own the Vintage Warner Brothers Library, And he's also in charge of the Warner
Archive, which does very expensive restorations on these classic films put them on HBO
Max and Blu Ray. So I know every time they do like a new
remastering or a new restoration of one of these classic films that pops up on
HBO Max and they show it on TCM. So that may be one of
the reasons that it's on HBO Max. Is like they did a new four
case game of the Yeah, well TCM is like under the HBO Max like
thing, because you got like Cartoon Network, and you've got like a bunch
of other stuff. So yeah, I was. And then I mean,
I think A Star Is Born is already on HBO Max, which I have
never actually finished. I watched it on a plane to Minnesota. Was it
Minnesota? Yeah, Minnesota, And the flight was shorter than the movie.
Yeah, I didn't finish the movie. I still like the last like half
hour I've never watched. Well, and it's it's good. I think it's
one of Judy's best performances. It is really long, and it was longer,
like it was longer, and and but as a result, like the
movie is so like cut apart and like truncated, and you just get these
like weird those inter cuts of the black and white with the photos, and
I'm like, and then they I think the the film, the extra roles
of film with the stuff that got cut, like like we're destroyed in a
fire or something in that big fire, so like we'll just never see be
able to put together the what four hour movie? Right? I know?
Well, and which I would love to see, which I think would be
a better movie. Oh yeah, well, and it was. It was
breaking box office records across the country and tell well. Jack Warner was the
head of Warner Brothers and Judy. This was Judy's first film at Warner Brothers
because she had been at Metros for so long, and Jack Warner did not
get along with Judy and she he did not get along with her husband,
Sid Luft, who also produced it. And you know, Harry Warner talked
to Jack Warner, Harry Warner was Jack Warner's brother, into cutting down the
movie. So they cut it down so much and then they started to get
complaints like this movie doesn't make sense. We're not seeing the original full movie,
you know. So it actually lost money at the box office because of
that fiasco, and then all of that footage was lost on you know,
the cutting room floor, except for the audio which you can hear under all
of those black and white stills, you know, right, But yeah,
it does make it where like the first time I saw it on TCM,
I probably was in middle school, and I thought, Oh, that's kind
of a cool artsy thing that they're doing with these black and white photos.
And then I was like, but it's like twenty or thirty minutes of black
and white photos, and this feels like they're overdoing it. But it's like,
really, you know, they cut out all of the footage. Yeah,
but they'd done that like for like one or two time jumps, like
okay, but it just keeps happening, like where's all the movie? Where's
the movie? Right? It's like it's just black and white photos. But
yes, and also you talk about that fire. A lot of people don't
talk about that fire. I think it was like in nineteen seventies, six
seventy seven fire at the fourteen l seventies. Yeah, yes, and it
was. It was the It was because in the mid sixties, Culver City,
where Metro is located, it's not a huge at that time, it
wasn't a huge, booming metropolis. And they said, okay, so we
have to go back real fast. The classic films up to nineteen fifty three.
Films up to nineteen fifty three were shot on a film stock that was
made of nitrate. And you might know this nitrate is what's used in gunpowder.
But it also has this beautiful silvery machine that gave black and white this
gorgeous silvery machine. But they could not They had to store them like in
refrigerated areas because if they get too hot, they could explode if they're around
you know, certain chemicals, they will explode. So Culver City in the
mid sixties went to the executives at MGM and were like, Okay, so
this is a threat to our community because you have this entire like warehouse full
of just gunpowder. Yes, So they made interpositives of the entire thing,
like, they made copies of all of it. And they did something that
Fox didn't do, which is they made like three straight they made Technicolor and
ambitionient. Well I don't know, they copied the Technicolor in a way that
it was going to retain its luster, whereas Fox dumped all of their Technicolor
camera negatives. So all Carmen Miranda, Betty Grabel movies, Alice Faye,
that original technicolor is lost. But yeah, in the seventies they were storing
all of these original camera negatives for some of Metro's biggest films, biggest classic
musicals, well in films in general. And I'm not sure what started it,
but man, that was a fire that was like Hiroshima going off because
it was just all that gunpowder beating off of one another and there goes like
a huge part of the old Hollywood history exactly. But I mean the good
thing is that they had made like good preservation prints of the original technicolor negatives
in the black and white film, so when they go back and restore them,
they have something that looks good that they can restore them off of.
Not all studios have that anymore, because anyway, film preservation not doesn't mean
as much to other people as it does to me. Do you have any
other thoughts on the movie? I've enjoyed talking to you so much and hearing
everything that you have to say. No, I don't think I have anything
else to say, but thank you for asking me to do this. Oh
no, it's you know, a year in the making, I know well,
and of course anytime, and you know, maybe I'd love to do
some more Judy films in the future, if you'd ever be interested in maybe
coming back to talk about another one or yes, especially like any anything before
nineteen thirty nine, Like I know a lot, let's do Pigskin Parade next.
Oh my god, she's only in the lot. That's her first,
her first movie, she's and that one's on YouTube as well, I believe
is where I watched that. But she's only in like the last like thirty
minutes of the movie, right, and she did not like it. She
did not like the way she looked because you could see all her freckles,
and I guess that was a problem back then, like nobody liked freckles,
and she just hated it. I mean, she didn't really feel started to
feel comfortable on camera until she started working with Mickey Rooney. Yeah. Yeah,
and yeah, bless his heart, I've all this sudden Mackey Rooney did.
One of the great things was befriending Judy Garland, that's for sure.
Yeah, yeah, I did. I really really appreciate you coming on today
and hearing everything that you have to say. I think you probably more than
anything else outside of anybody else outside of John Frecky, know more about Judy
Garland than anyone great well, and I'm not sure about that. There's a
lot of people online that, Yeah, I don't think I know that much.
I actually, for someone who plays her on stage, I don't know.
I only know like a very condensed part of her life. I mean,
I know the basics of the rest of it. But you know,
I feel really I really like the beginning. Yes, well, the beginning
is great, and it makes one hell of a show. Let me tell
ya. Yeah, I feel like you know more about a certain time in
her life that a lot of people don't because a lot of you. Yeah,
it's not a part of her life that has really gotten any coverage.
And it is just as interesting and dramatic as like any other part of her
life. It's just not as sexy, I guess. I guess. Yeah.
I mean she's twelve, so yeah, I would hope not right,
but yeah, I mean, just like her the family dynamics, her early
years at MGM, you know, her friendship with Mickey Rooney. I mean
it's all you know, her finding her her style, her vocal style,
which is you know, heavily influenced by Roger Eatans. Yeah, and hopefully
I can see it maybe on Broadway one day. I did want to ask
you, well, first of all, to our listeners, I know you
shake your head and roll your eyes. It's gonna happen. Ruby, You're
gonna win the Tony. Everybody listening needs to go to YouTube and watch Ruby.
And then it's a number from the show, Isn't it got a pair
of new shoes? Oh? Yes, yeah, yes, which is is
just so much fun to watch, and I think it's several years old,
but it's so awesome. Yea in a music video we did a couple of
years ago, Yes, a couple because I got to like subtract two years
from all my add two years to all my like memories, right exactly.
I mean, twenty twenty didn't happen, right, twenty and I did a
twenty twenty one really, and I'm starting to think twenty twenty two didn't happen
either, So I know we're just lost forever. No more is life?
So but yeah, that got a pair of new shoes is I think it
was her first feature film at Metro. Thoroughbreads don't cry that you, Yeah,
those Thoroughbreads don't cry. Which that's a weird scene too. She's like
playing the guitar, singing, got a pair of trying to like sing to
is it Freddy Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney, And Mickey Rooney's like in the other
room, like trying to take Freddy's pants off the whole time to like give
them a massage like erotic. It's a very overrotic scene. And Judy's on
the other side of the door, trying to come in and play them a
song. It's a very very strict Well, I think Freddy Bertheloma is a
jockey, a child jockey. They're both jockeys, Okay, well and yeah,
but Mickey's like the experienced guy and Judy is the daughter of the people
who own the boarding house that the jockeys stay in. Yeah, and she's
like very like dramatic and like loves acting and performing. And that's that's also
pretty funny movie. She's pretty good in that one as well. Yes,
yeah, Mickey Rooney, Yes, and yeah, it's fantastic. I think
Mickey Rooney is trying to give Freddy Barthelomew like massage, is like so he
can ride the horse again. But that's not what it looks like. But
it looks really weird, just taking his pants off, taking his pants off,
rubbing his legs while Judy is saying and like, but Freddy's fighting him
the whole time, like he doesn't want it to happen. I know,
I know. And there's should there's a there's a type of label that you
could call that nowadays, but I'm not going to say it on our podcast
or my pod or our podcast. I wanted to one more question and then
I promise I'll let you go. You go run and live your beautiful life.
Who plays I know your dad was played by Max von Essen. Yeah,
yes, who's Broadway great? I live vicariously through some of these people
that are on Broadway on Instagram. But who played Make You Rooney? And
oh, Mike Cortella. Yeah, okay, that's like I said, spectacular
cast. Yeah, he's he's wonderful. He then went, I mean was
supposed to close out the season at the Papermill in twenty twenty, say so,
Chasing Raybis opened the twenty nineteen twenty twenty season, and then he was
going to close out the season with The Wanderer playing Dion de Mucci, which
then did didn't happen until this past April. Yeah, yeah, March,
March April, so he finally got to do that, So he was,
So he's really great. So, I mean, you know, hopefully we'll
see that show on Broadway too. Oh yeah, yeah, and all of
those great. Yeah, I know, it's taken a little while. I
was just casting the first show since the pandemic yesterday or the day before that.
So anyway, it's taking a little bit of time. For things to
come back. Yeah, but anyway, I want to, like I said,
thank you again, And if anybody, any of our listeners listening today
you're like, I don't know if that's completely correct one of the historical facts,
or there's something that you'd like to add to the conversation, or if
there's a movie that you would like for us to talk about, please feel
free to write into the Hollywood Babylonians at gmail dot com. We'll read your
letter on the air. Go follow us on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube,
and Facebook. Until next time, This is Ruby Rakos and Ben Burke.
Thank you for a listen to the Hollywood Babylonian. You have been listening to
the Hollywood Babylonians. The Hollywood Babylonians is produced, edited and hosted by Bin
Burke and co hosted by Ruby REGOs, audio engineering by Andrew Davis, with
artwork by Bin Burke and Jamie Lee. If you liked what you heard today,
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Babylonians content, tune in next Friday, December twenty ninth for a very special
episode of The Hollywood Babylonians. For the Hollywood Babylonians present a Lox Radio Theater
drama meet Me in Saint Louis, as we recreate the original Lux Radio Theatre's
production of Meet Me in Saint Louis from December two, nineteen forty six.
Thank you for listening and have a ghoul would light