Summer Stock (1950, Charles Walters)

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

Summer Stock (1950, Charles Walters)

#1 Post by Michael » Sun Jun 08, 2008 1:32 pm

"A corny drag"..I remember slapping Summer Stock with that statement somewhere on this forum when I was going through a phase dancing though 40s and 50s Hollywood musicals last year. But a year later today, for reason I don't really know but I wanted to watch Summer Stock again so I gave it go. My god, everything I didn't get in my first viewing of the movie just kept spilling out in incredible beauty. It was so easy to pick out flaws in movies like Summer Stock but after the second viewing, there was no flaw to be picked out. From Judy stepping out of her shower, singing away as she gets dressed all the way to the sublime Get Happy number. It's a complete perfection. Everything you could ask for the best of 40s/50s Hollywood fantasy, music and magic, this one offers everything and more. "More" is that I also discovered something else going on underneath the charming Technicolor surface. Judy is a woman who ends up running the farm by herself with the assistance of her funny, no-nonsense maid. Here we have women who stand up for themselves and for everything they believe is right. Judy small in size takes down the village's big guys - straight white men.. in that fantastic scene. And we have Gene Kelly who plays a guy very far from the typical SWM world. He's unique, modern and open minded and hearted and he even slept with his gay buddy. Now that gay buddy is so open, he's goofy yes but he remains so likeable thorughout the whole movie, he's even offered to share the stage equally with Gene in that wonderful giddy number with the dogs. I have friends who are exactly like that guy, yes even talk like him. How this 1950s Hollywood musical embraces feminism and gay characters alone moves my heart in such a rare way that I can't even articulate in words.

Of course the whole movie is GORGEOUS. I just fell for that extreme close up of Judy's face as she ends Happy Harvest on her tractor. What about that Friendly Star number? The camera sweeps up and down a couple of times as if it was a star and moves around to find Gene lost deep in melancholy. And I also just love that slow tracking shot as Gene and Judy run each other on the stage floor before the You Wonderful You number.

Geez, there's so much to love and celebrate in this movie. It will play on TCM this Tuesday, please don't miss it.
Last edited by Michael on Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

David Ehrenstein
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:30 pm
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"Summer Stock" is Judy's Grand Finale at MGM

#2 Post by David Ehrenstein » Sun Jun 08, 2008 7:00 pm

It's quite charming and in an offhanded way demonstrative of Walters' prodigious directorial talent.

Walters was a dancer on Broadway. When MGM bought Cole Porter's DuBarry Was a Lady it scooped up a number of memers in its cast -- Walters included. He was a real find not only for himself but as a dance director for the studio. He had an uncanny ability to create intimate dance routines that showed off the talents of stars with limited dance ability in a good light. He partenered with Judy in the "Embraceable You" number in Girl Crazy and the finale of Presenting Lily Mars. In 1945 he made a marvelous musical short called Spreadin' the Jam that Jacques Rivette (who rates Walters higher than Minnelli) obviously saw because he used many of its ideas for his Haut/Bas/Fragile.

Walter's first feature was Good News. After that he created a number of monster hits for the studio including Easter Parade and High Society.

Judy liked the "A Couple of Swells" number from Easter Parade so much that she included it in her act. When she played the Palace in 1951 Walters partnered her in it. As for High Society, when they realized that Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra needed a number together Cole Porter retooled "Well Did You Evah?" from DuBarry Was a Lady which was originally sung and danced by Betty Grable and Charles Walters. And so Charles Walters found himself teaching Frank and Bing HIS number.
Last edited by David Ehrenstein on Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Michael
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#3 Post by Michael » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:08 am

I'm sorry dave, I've removed the screencap. If I had known that very same cap was posted elsewhere on here, then I'd never have posted it in the first place. Actually I was shocked and embarrassed when I found out from your previous post. I was googling for Summer Stock images and this image (your cap) was the only one that caught my attention and I did not know it belonged to you or even it was already posted on here. I love that cap of Judy - very beautiful and intimate - wearing her most famous outfit - the hat! - from Summer Stock.

Once again dave, I'm sorry and it was never my intention to disrespect or cheat you.

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Michael
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#4 Post by Michael » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:21 am

Review quoted from Amazon:
After the humiliation of being fired from Annie Get Your Gun, Judy Garland was given a year off work and sent to a hospital in Boston, to primarily help her withdraw from the drug addiction that MGM had inadvertently created. That MGM agreed to pay her expenses is due to the waining influence of Louis B Mayer who was being outed by Dore Schary who the New York office had brought in as head of production.
In the MGM doco, When the Lion Roars, Schary had said that Garland refused the year off - a blatant lie - which helped him perpertrate the myth that she was eventually fired from the studio because of unreliability. Garland herself also used the myth to present herself as a victim, even though the truth was she had asked for the separation of her contract. Garland had actually wanted to leave MGM when she married Vincente Minnelli in 1945 and move to New York. However Garland never had that year off, because after 3 months during which she endured the agonies of a amphetimine and barbituite withdrawal , the studio summoned her to begin production of Summer Stock.
This situation highlights the ironies of Garland's dilemma. As spectacularly talented as she was, she was just as spectacularly insecure, and used the drugs to both reduce her natural stocky build to a camera-attractive gautness, and boost her confidence. (The fact that the side effects of the kinds of drugs she was taking include depression is another irony). For their part, MGM knew what an asset Garland was, but treated her counter-productively. Extraordinaryly gifted artists require extraordinary consideration, but they continually and foolishly scheduled her to make back-to-back films, knowing that the making of the first would leave her physically and mentally exhausted. This was part of the reason she was unable to be her best for Annie Get Your Gun, having just finished In The Good Old Summertime. Then add hiring Busby Berekely to direct, a man Judy had come to hate after the way he abused a performance out of her for Girl Crazy.
Perhaps MGM's investment in her was limited to her output - imagine the money lost with her not working for a year?! Or perhaps the producer Joe Pasternak who had made Summertime thought it would help Garland save face after the relatively easy production of that film and the humiliation of Annie. However, back on the drugs in an effort to reduce weight to be ready for the camera, the scene was set for disaster. No matter how the studio tried to help Garland - by casting Gene Kelly as co-star, Easter Parade director Charles Walters, giving her half day calls, the drugs made her paranoid and hostile - hardly the best state of mind to perform in a musical.
Given all this, there are only slight indications of the production problems evident in the final film. Garland's additional weight that so concerned MGM seems barely an issue here. Even the after filmed Get Happy number where she had lost weight and returned, shows a minor difference, though what is more noticable is the standard of Get Happy versus the numbers previously filmed, as none of them match it. The only one that comes close is Garland's Friendly Skies. This number has her leaning against things as she sings, as apparently she could barely stand alone on the day of filming, according to Walters account. In Her Howdy Neighbour number where she rides a tractor, we get Garland's sense of self parody, and in the Portland Fancy number with Kelly, we see Garland's undervalued talent for dance. The extreme degree of Garland's hyper-emotionalism here, may be explained by her private mental state, but the anger has a context in her character's objection to Kelly and his Players invading her barn to put on their show. Her vocals on You Wonderful You and All for You are oddly offkey, but the closeup on her in the dialogue scene after Friendly Sky that Walters strangley freeze frames, shows Garland at her most touching. (Kelly's flat acting response to her reads like suppressed rage). Walters adds a lot of humour to the scene of the Players unpacking on the farm, Eddie Bracken's proposes to Garland with Ray Collins as intermediary, and a crossed conversation between Garland, Kelly and Phil Silvers upon news about Gloria DeHaven. There are two continuity errors - Kelly asks Garland how long she has been engaged twice, and we see Garland coming offstage after the Heavenly Music number which she doesn't appear in (It is said she was to be in it originally). Silvers and Bracken provide the broad cornball style of comedy MGM favoured, (they make Marjorie Main look subtle), with DeHaven the terrorfyingly bland musical comedy star of the future, and Kelly's "kids" a reaction against the country "squares". Their infiltration of the dance that leads to the Portland Fancy number changing from traditional to jazz may be justified in allowing Garland to show Kelly she can dance as well as he, but it mostly demonstrates youthful selfishness.
The VHS release features Garland's short Every Sunday, a "tabloid musical" directed by Felix E Feist, apparently made as a test to see whether the public responded more to Garland or her co-star Deanna Durbin. However the test is unbalanced, so much that one wonders whether it was re-edited after Garland found success and Durbin was released to go to Universal. Here Garland gets the better screen treatment. She is the protagonist, Durbin the reactor. Garland gets more lines, and her solo Americana is longer and more flatteringly edited. Garland has the hip song, is given closeups, and mingles with the musicians who perform at an outside concert, whilst Durbin sings an operatic piece, standing still, and is only seen in medium shot. Durbin probably has the better voice technically but Garland overwhelms her with charisma and audience empathy. The evidence of this short demystifies the myth that MGM executives were told to "let the fat one go". Anyway, Garland isn't even fat.
About the myth involving Judy being fired from MGM, is this full of caca? Anyone supporting those words? I always thought it was all true.

David Ehrenstein
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#5 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:52 am

Both MGM and Judy were fed up with each other. Who blinked first may be a matter of contention to some, but not to me. It doesn't matter. The handwriting was on the wall with The Pirate.

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