Summer Stock

As I was watching “Summer Stock” it seemed like a pretty prototypical MGM musical of the era. It wasn’t a knockout, all the plot machinations were pretty obvious, but there were some fun musical numbers and a couple really nice pieces of choreography.

After doing a little research on the film, however, the presence of Judy Garland started to overshadow the picture, in my mind. There’s the movie happening on screen, and there’s the much more interesting one going on behind the scenes.

I knew going in that Garland was a troubled soul in her adult years, and a nasty cycle of depression and addiction made it next to impossible for her to keep her career going strong. And at many points throughout the film, you can tell that this production was not a particularly high point in her life. She’s trying hard, but the strain is clear. Even during the smallest moments of drama in the film, her face looks like its going to crumble. It’s hard to imagine that is 100% the character, and not, at least partially, the person playing her.

Take, for example, the scene where Garland is riding her new tractor back to her farm. She’s got a piece of a equipment that will finally allow her farm to turn a profit. She’s singing and waving to her neighbors. This should be a relatively joyous moment for her character, but instead she seems to be straining just to keep it together. The look on her face as she belts out the closing note of the number is almost horrifying.

And then there’s the rather iconic scene at the end of the film where she sings and dances to “Get Happy” in a tuxedo jacket, leggings and fedora, and looks noticeably slimmer than early in the film. Was she just hiding that figure in her overalls the whole time? Well no, it turns out she saw a hypnotist after filming wrapped, lost 15 pounds and filmed this sequence three months later. That’s your dose of Old Hollywood Movie Magic: a troubled actress was hypnotized to lose weight so she could squeeze another musical number into a film.

Apparently Gene Kelly wanted Garland to be a part of the film. He saw it as a favor, to help get her career back on track. I’m sure he had good intentions, but asking her to carry a film at the time probably wasn’t the greatest idea. And Garland really is the true lead of the film. Kelly is an outstanding compliment, but the story belongs to Jane, Garland’s character.

From a story standpoint, it’s relatively straightforward: Jane owns a farm, and one day her sister Abigail and her theater troupe show up to put on a show in the barn. The troupe is operating under the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” principle, and Jane lets them stay since they’ve gone to the trouble of getting there. Abigail has brought along her fiancé, Joe (also the show’s director), of course played by Gene Kelly. Jane and Joe get off to a rocky start, but the more they’re around one another, the more intrigued they become with the other’s company. A few song and dance numbers later, Abigail ends up leaving with the show’s male lead for a role in a Broadway show, Jane and Joe step in, realize they’re in love, and the rest is history.

As I mentioned, the story is fine, if not incredibly inspired. Jane’s nominal fiancé, Orville, lends a bit of a subplot, as he and his overbearing father try to get the show stopped under the guise of the old “we don’t want these artist types up here ruining our wholesome town” plot. Throughout history, I’m not sure why cinematic townspeople have been so threatened by singing and dancing.

Looking back, it feels like there’s not a lot more of substance that actually happens in the film, besides Jane and Joe dancing around one another (pun intended) while Joe tries to rehearse the show. The whole time I was wondering how the writers would move Joe from one sister to the next without Abigail vowing to never speak to Jane. But after Joe berates Abigail in front of the cast for her lack of effort, she leaves town on her own accord. They also planted a seed earlier in the film with a scene between Orville and Abigail where they seemed to get along very easily, and indeed, those two do end up together at the end, even though Abigail is out of his league by a good ten times or so.

While the film displays some misogyny that was typical of the era, it also paints the Falbury sisters as tough, strong women. Orville tries to give them both the business, and they both basically tell him where to stick it. Jane is basically ready to castrate him when she finds out he’s threatened to stop the show. It’s nice to see the female characters stand up for themselves, though, to be fair, Orville may in fact be the world’s least intimidating man.

As for the music, there are definitely some standout moments. The aforementioned “Get Happy” sequence with Garland has achieved iconic status, and for good reason. It’s a showstopper through and through; Garland’s performance makes it very hard to take your eyes off the screen through the number.

Another high point is the town meeting at the barn, where a sort of tap dance battle breaks out between Joe and Jane before they end up dancing with one another instead of against. The “Dig Dig Dig Dig For Your Dinner” number around the kitchen table was a delight to watch, as Kelly skillfully taps, leaps and maneuvers from table to floor and back again as his troupe looks on with wonder and envy. He shows here, as he has countless other times, that he’s truly a master of his craft.

Lest we forget that this is the Gene Kelly marathon, my favorite performance in the film is a Kelly solo. After he’s confronted in the barn by Jane later in the film, there’s a decidedly somber vibe in the air. I would’ve bet my house that a forlorn song would be coming next. But instead, Kelly delights himself (and this viewer) with an impromptu dance that starts off slow but becomes very upbeat, making excellent use of a creaky floorboard and some newspaper in the process. A lesser screen presence than Gene Kelly most likely wouldn’t have been able to pull this off, but he makes it look easy. The sequence is a great way to subvert the viewer’s expectations, and fine piece of film-making overall.

Again, Kelly is pitch perfect in this role. He has that feel-good warmth about him here again, and though it’s very welcome, it’s not quite enough to overcome that dark cloud that Garland’s performance brings along with it.

Stray Thoughts

• Herb, who seems to be Joe’s number two man in the production, is one of the more annoying characters I’ve run across.
• Speaking of Herb, do you think if you were out of control on a tractor, maybe it would cross your mind to try the brake?
• Orville is a huge pushover, and basically lets his father walk all over him. Yet the thing that finally pisses him off enough to stand up to his old man is his fiance doing something she enjoys.
• The town hall barn dance off had a real 50s high school, rock n’ roll dance vibe to it. This film was released in 1950, so it was shade of things to come very soon.
• From the “this is a musical so let’s not analyze things too closely” file, two or three days before the show, the barn features basically a totally bare-bones, plain wood stage. By the time the show opens, they basically have a Broadway theater in there. Helluva job by the crew.
• The hillbilly number in the musical featuring Joe and Herb is profoundly weird. Gene Kelly has the closest thing to a perfect face for movies, and you black out some of his teeth and turn him into a barefoot hillbilly? I wildly disagree with this decision!
• I think a more interesting story would’ve been to focus on this struggling troupe, putting on a show in the middle of nowhere, trying to attract some Broadway producer. The love story (especially throwing Orville and Abigail together at the end) never quite rang true to me.