The Harvey Girls

Buy This Item The Harvey Girls by Turner Home Ent  Available from Amazon  $17.99  on 11-27-2008     Musical western about a mail order bride who ditches her bashful suitor and joins a group of women intent on opening a remote whistle stop restaurant. Format: DVD MOVIE Reader Reviews Movies often have a long history BEFORE the cameras roll. "THE HARVEY GIRLS" was originally envisioned as a straight Western, with the likes of Lana Turner (a thorn in Judy Garland's side at MGM), Joan Crawford, and Clark Gable. It was turned around as a musical; similar in its Americana, homespun/folsky spirit to Rodgers & Hammerstein's "OKLAHOMA!" With Judy Garland in, Clark Gable was OUT as her love interest. Because Judy had sung the ballad "You Made Me Love You" to Gable's photo in "BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938" as an adolescent, it was thought that audiences would not accept an onscreen romance between Garland and Gable; never mind that she was now a beautiful, grown woman. Never mind, really, because John Hodiak fills the bill nicely as resident hunk Ned Trent. The plot premise is slight and a bit weird, but Judy Garland, regardless of how silly the plots of her films at MGM often were, was always best playing women who wanted to get a lot of adventure out of life. Her character of Susan Bradley says here in this film, "The Constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness, but it's up to me to do the pursuing!" Susan has traveled all the way to Sandrock ("the bare and blistered end of creation") to answer a marriage ad. When the ad turns out to be a joke of Ned Trent's, she decides to stay and work as a Harvey Girl waitress. All the girls have come to town "On The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"-- which won Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren an Academy Award for "Best Song Of 1946." Several girls are quickly and easily frightened out of town by cheap and obvious scare tactics. Judy, Cyd Charisse, and Virginia O'Brien are the only original three ladies tough enough to tackle the Wild West, and Majorie Main is always good for laughs. The Harvey House Restaurant is right across the street from Ned's saloon/brothel, where a very young and beautiful Angela Lansbury is Em, the hooker with a heart of gold. Judy and Angela are rivals for Hodiak's affeections. (Angela is the Bad Girl, Judy is the Good Girl). A cat-fight/brawl between the "Good Harvey Girls" and the "Bad Saloon Girls" is thrown in for good measure. Angela Lansbury's singing voice is dubbed in here; especially ironic since Angela later went on to win a record four Tony Awards for her roles in the Broadway musicals "MAME," "DEAR WORLD", "GYPSY", and "SWEENEY TODD." Virginia O'Brien has one fun song titled, "It's Too Darn Mild In The Wild, Wild West." O'Brien is seen in the first half of the film, and is absent entirely from the second half. This is because, as the late director George Sidney points out in his cheery, amiable, but meandering walk down memory lane of a DVD audio commentary, she went off to have a baby. There is even a mini "THE WIZARD OF OZ" reunion here. Ray Bolger is also in the cast as meek blacksmith Chris Maul. He appears in production numbers and dances with Judy. Ray and Judy worked together again on Judy's 1964 TV Variety Show. A look at the deleted but huge production number "March Of The Doagies" strongly suggests that the best musical sequence in the film was left on the cutting-room floor!! Bursting with the vibrant Technicolor hues from a sadly vanished age of Cinema, "THE HARVEY GIRLS" is too slight and lightweight on plot to succeed or be considered as a great Musical or Western, but it does entertain, nevertheless, in its own merry way.

The Harvey Girls Available from Amazon Price: $17.99 Updated on 11-27-2008.

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