Babes on Broadway

I thought I’d seen this, but perhaps it’s one of the other <Foo> in/on <Bar> movies?

So true.

Hey, it’s Mickey Rooney.

This is very amiable — the kind of thing where they’re hamming it up to the max constantly, but without getting annoying — you just can’t stop smiling while watching this.

Oh, that’s whatserface! I’ve seen her in several movies — she’s so funny.

Virginia Wielder… oh deer. She died when she was just 41!

What’s a settlement house… a house where they settle kids?

As is often the case with these Busby Berkeley extravaganzas, this movie is about putting on a stage show. And I love how (as usual) he blithely disregards any thought of realism in how things are staged — everything is done purely for the camera, and would be impossible as an actual stage performance.

Oh, and suddenly there’s a bunch of English kids being introduced, who somehow are in the US and eating properly and stuff… but without actually mentioning the war — presumably to avoid being accused of pro-UK subversion.

*sniff*

Oh, Babes on Broadway was released December 31st, 1941 — just three weeks after the US finally joined WW II! Did they shoot this scene in those weeks and manage to splice it into the movie, or were they just prescient? The scene has nothing to do with anything.

But this is fantastic propaganda. This is how you do it.

OK, now they’re padding a bit — they’re adding a fantasy Cyrano de Bergerac thing… and then another thing… and then another thing… Did they just have a bunch of songs they had to use but couldn’t fit into the plot?

Or just a case of “we’ve got Rooney and Garland; we’ve gotta squeeze some more footage out of them”? Because the movie has moved along very nicely until now, but it’s ground to a complete halt now.

Oh deer!

Oh, this has to be the biggest blackface show ever.

I mean, blackface things in the 30s… OK, but this just seems straight out racist.

Right.

WTF.

Wow, that really took a turn during the last fifteen minutes, which consists of this minstrel show these “kids” are putting on as a finale to their show. It comes out of nowhere and isn’t just one of those good-natured blackface skits — it’s pretty explicitly racist.

It just comes out of nowhere — the first half of the movie is so enjoyable, and then we get that great propaganda bit, and then the movie grinds to a halt, and then there’s that ending.

It really makes me wonder what the thoughts behind the production was — in-movie, they’re saying that they’re putting on the minstrel show to attract a southern audience, and I wonder if that’s just what that was? I mean, you had to have something racist to outweigh the earnest plea mid-movie that the US should join in the fight against fascism? That wasn’t a garden variety blackface thing either — it was explicitly about making fun of black people.

And especially considering that there aren’t any black actors in the movie, it’s…

Wikipedia has nothing, and it seems like this movie has mostly been forgotten…

Babes on Broadway. Busby Berkeley. 1941. ⚃

Galaxyquest

It’s fascinating — there was a period where they really tried to make Tim Allen happen, even though it’s obvious that he’s not very likeable and is a bad actor to boot. But they really tried!

Heh heh — they felt the need to resort to the Sigourney character stating out loud that people like the Tim Allen character, and looks at him adoringly like only Sigourney can do.

Wow, have they redone the effects for this 4K version? Probably not, because they look awesome and they seem to have forgotten how to do good CGI these days.

I assume everybody knows the plot of this thing, so I’m not going to comment on that. But rewatching this now, I’m kinda impressed by how efficiently they get things underway — if this was made today, it would have taken them two hours to get through the setup instead of 20 minutes.

Perhaps they wouldn’t even have gotten to the alien ship until the final scene, and then only the second film would have gotten to the actual plot.

I remember liking this movie more — I’ve seen it a couple times before? I rebought it now because it’s on 4K… and it looks really good, but I’m just not all that into the movie this time around. I know, I know, it’s a movie for twelve year olds, so that’s a thing, but I’m also just thinking there should be more gags?

I mean, I like the general thing and I love Sigourney Weaver in this, but for me it’s just not as funny as I think it should be.

OK, the final quarter of this movie is just irresistible — it’s exactly what this movie should be. Lots of fun, and over-the-top sentimental. It’s great.

So despite having some reservations about the middle bit:

Galaxyquest. Dean Parisot. 1999. ⚄

Stars of the Roller State Disco

Oh, suddenly we’re in the 80s… 1984, even. So it seems like Clarke had a hiatus at the BBC for a few years? Ok, Danton’s Death was in 1981, so that’s not very long, but that seemed quite 70s, and this looks like an extremely 80s sci fi thing.

Nothing has been explained yet, but it seems like all these kids are living in a state run roller skating rink? YES I KNOW! It’s great!

(Echoes of Skateman…)

Oh, it’s like an unemployment agency slash jail? If you don’t have a job, you have to stay in the roller skating rink until you get a job…

Very helpful people trying to get them into jobs.

So… what they’re doing here is basically talking about the problems kids have in general, but with everybody skating around all the time, which certainly gives things more visual interest… I’m really into this for some reason!

This is very strange… you’d expect this sort of thing would be about how horribly these kids are treated and stuff, but we basically follow a couple of pairs of people, with most of the time spent with this guy — who wants to work building fine furnishings, so he’s turning down job after job he’s offered, even when they sound perfect.