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Babes in Arms Movie Review

Babes in Arms is a 1939 musical film directed by Busby Berkeley and starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. It’s a very dated flick.

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“We’ll get every kid in this town on our side,

and we’ll start right now! What do you say?“

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It follows a group of youngsters who try to put on a show and get to Broadway to prove to their parents their vaudevillian skills. Having in mind that this is vaudeville we’re talking about, of course the movie is very dated nowadays – the imitations, the exaggerated comedic bits and of course blackface are all odd for today’s audiences.

I personally found Rooney’s imitation of Lionel Barrymore absolutely hilarious and so on-point. Having just recently seen ‘You Can’t Take It with You’, I was floored by the accuracy of that imitation, but his Gable one was weak. Apart from a couple of such fun scenes, most of the other scenes saw Rooney be a very annoying brat. It’s thus difficult to find somebody who adores Mickey Rooney nowadays as much as they did during this period as his style of comedy and over-the-top performing aged poorly for sure.

Judy Garland is great per usual, but unfortunately not a good match for Rooney as the two had some fun moments, but overall this pairing was strange to me personally. Garland’s finest moment saw her singing Good Morning, which is a classic song that I always love hearing again.

Speaking of the music, Babes in Arms is a vaudeville musical that utilizes on old favorites, and although they are fun to hear, some are very boring, and the movie is thus very unoriginal and far from exciting in those sequences.

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The film is also awkwardly paced, rushed at times and very poorly directed with particularly weak technical aspects. There is a lot of charm to be found in some scenes with the main duo, but again most of this movie is just a curiosity for today’s audiences, even for me as a big fan of thirties entertainment. The Oscar nomination for Mickey Rooney is absolutely ludicrous and I am shocked at the Academy for having done that back in 1940.

Babes in Arms is charming and fun in a couple of musical numbers and comedic bits, but for the most part it’s a dated vaudeville musical that is just a curiosity for today’s audiences. Judy Garland is pretty good here, but Mickey Rooney, although killing it impersonating Lionel Barrymore, was mostly too annoying. His Oscar nomination was a ridiculous choice.