Ainsi sont les femmes

"A Date with Judy" was a typical entertainment that MGM produced over and over as a way of showing its contract players. This film was a showcase to present Jane Powell and Elizabeth Taylor, two of the popular young actresses at the time. While the movie will not add anything to either one of the stars resumes, it's a pleasant way for watching how times have changed. The film was directed by Richard Thorpe, and produced by Joe Pasternak.

Judy and Carol are friends from school. Judy is the talented singer who is going to perform at a school party. Carol is the spoiled rich girl who is jealous of Judy. Oogie, Carol's brother, the band leader, is in love with Judy. To complicate things a newly arrived young man, Stephen, has come into town to work for the summer and he is the object of both Judy's and Carol's attention.

Wallace Beery is the best thing in the film. He plays Melvin Foster, Judy's father. He refuses to dance at the party with his wife, and thanks to Xavier Cugat's suggestion, he decides to engage Rosita, the voluptuous Carmen Miranda, to give him private lessons. Since the tutoring takes place in his office, and it's surrounded by a cloud of mystery, it appears Melvin and Rosita are having an affair. But the biggest surprise comes at the end of the film when the Fosters are celebrating their 20th anniversary and we watch Melvin, who by now is an experienced dancer, shows off on the dance floor. A delicious moment, indeed.

Jane Powell and Elizabeth Taylor are charming in their roles. Robert Stack and Scotty Beckett are also good. Leon Ames, Xavier Cugat, and the effervescent Carmen Miranda make excellent contributions, but it's Wallace Beery, who steals the show.

"A Date with Judy" will delight viewers looking for a nostalgic look at an uncomplicated time in America.

This film is a real riot of charm, song, wit and dazzling color. This kind of movie-making has been dead for a very long time, to my everlasting regret. Scotty Beckett and Jane Powell stand out. Unfortunately, Carmen Miranda is made to sing Hollywood's version of Brazilian songs, rather than the authentic stuff. It is disappointing that foreigners should so often be the object of amusement in American films. They are not allowed any dignity. However, Miranda makes the best of what she is given, and shines like a star.

The fun is wholesome, but not too wholesome. The plot involves suspected adultery by a venerable father!!! Plots and subplots are gloriously interwoven. Every time I see this film I am reassured that there IS such a thing as perfection.

A Date With Judy probably is Jane Powell's career role, maybe even more so than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It's Jane at her juvenile cuteness with the movie song probably most identified with her.

Amazingly enough, It's A Most Unusual Day did not even get nominated for the Oscar sweepstakes that year which saw the best song as Buttons and Bows. Still the Jimmy McHugh-Harold Adamson song has an enduring quality, it's one eternally optimistic tune. Jane sings it so well.

The movie is based on a popular radio series of the time and in a few years it would move on to television where Judy Foster and Oogie Pringle would continue the everlasting courtship.

In this film we have two story lines working in tandem. War veteran Robert Stack working as a soda jerk, putting himself through college, and interested in both Jane Powell as Judy or Oogie Pringle's older sister Carol, who is Elizabeth Taylor. Jane is pretty, but Elizabeth was drop dead gorgeous. Is that ever a no brainer.

The second is Judy's dad, Wallace Beery learning the rumba from Carmen Miranda, so he can surprise mom, Selena Royle on their anniversary. Of course Powell and Taylor mistake the meaning of those office rendezvous.

In true family film fashion it all works out in the end. One thing I never understood is why any kid like Scotty Beckett would want to be tagged with the moniker of Oogie even though it's short for Ogden. What a name to go through life with.

Jane sings divinely though and that's the real reason for watching this pleasing, but terribly dated family film.

"A Date with Judy" is a nostalgic look at mid-20th century America when most of the world was at peace, or at least enjoying a calm. It's a picture of middle and upper middle-class white America after World War II. The film is set in Santa Barbara, California in 1948. Rock 'n roll hasn't yet burst on the scene. It was the sunset years of the corner drugstore with its soda fountain where teens met after high school. That's just before drive-in restaurants came on the scene in the1950s. Kids still dressed modestly and nicely. The bobbysoxer boom was just around the corner.

This is one of the lighter types of comedy-musicals that MGM made with various young stars after the series of Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland (1938-1946). The big musicals, of all the studios, were to come in the next two decades. That, despite the demise of the studio system.

This is a cute comedy romance with Jane Powell singing a few songs and she and 16-year-old Elizabeth Taylor organizing a high school musical program. Powell is Judy Foster and Taylor is Carol Pringle. Powell was three years older than Taylor, and although Taylor got her start in films younger than Powell, it was Powell's singing that propelled her career in musicals. Of course, Taylor's star would take off with excellent dramatic roles. Later Powell films were much better, but this is a light and fun film with a couple of tremendous young entertainers very early in their careers.

The most unusual casting for this film has to Wallace Beery as Judy's father, Melvin Colner Foster. The usually gruff, tough, and often nasty Beery actually pulls it off as a caring dad and nice guy in this film.

Carmen Miranda, known as the Brazilian Bombshell, adds some spice and humor to the story, as well as a tune. And, the frequently paired Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra (with Miranda) provide most of the music.

"A Date with Judy" is an enjoyable film that also gives an accurate peak at the culture of the time, place and people of the late 1940s in much of America.

Here are a couple lines from the film.

Judy Foster, "My father seems to think that his fish can get along very well without my help."

Caro Pringle, "I finally convinced father to let you and Oogie try out on his radio station." Judy, "You did? Oh, that's stinky super."

Sweet comedy, a time capsule of teen-hood in the movies in the 40's with wonderful music courtesy of Xavier Cugat and his band.

Jane Powell is charmingly pert, full of youthful exuberance something she excelled at. According to her autobiography though that very spryness became a type of prison limiting her casting and when musicals declined in popularity made it impossible for her to transition to other types of pictures.

Someone who certainly didn't suffer the same issue is Elizabeth Taylor, very young and very beautiful, this was one of her first roles that flirted with adulthood.

The doomed Scotty Beckett, a major child star throughout his youth, plays Jane's gangly boyfriend, the unfortunately named Oogie, struggling with puberty in one of the roles attempting to ease him into adult roles. He couldn't make the leap and within the year started the long slide into trouble with the law and drug addiction that ended in his suicide two decades later at 38.

In one of his last roles Wallace Beery is full of warm understanding as Jane's father in a departure from his usual bluster, he and Selena Royale at well matched as a long married couple.

Lastly Carmen Miranda is a delight as always, her clothes and hats are outlandish, take special note of her shoes and wonder how she could possibly walk in them! One quibble, the Technicolor is unusually garish and at times the cast practically glows orange.