|
MGM, 1938. Directed by
Edwin L. Marin. Camera: Joseph Ruttenberg. With
Judy
Garland, Allan Jones,
Fanny
Brice, Reginald Owen, Billie Burke, Reginald Gardiner, Monty Woolley,
Henry Armetta, Ann Bupp. |
|
After
being expelled from the exclusive Colvin School for Girls for singing
Mendelssohn in swing time, Judy Bellaire must go home and face her family.
Although eccentricity is a family trademark, Judy's father Hillary and
mother Diana are distressed that she has gotten expelled again. Only
the family servants, Olga Chekaloff and Ricky Saboni, and her sister Sylvia
seem to sympathize.
Playwright Hillary is too busy rehearsing his new play
starring Diana and Jerrold Hope, as well as coping with the family's
strained finances, to listen to Judy. When backer John Fleming finally
decides that he has had enough of the Bellaires and won't finance the play,
Judy thinks that she can save them by performing herself. Although
Ricky is a successful singer each night at the Cafe Nappo, he stays with the
Bellaires to be near Sylvia, who returns his affection.
During the various family crises, Judy is put on a boat to
Europe to prevent her from taking a job singing at the Cafe Neppo, but she
sneaks away and becomes a sensation, unknown to her self-absorbed parents.
To further help the Bellaires, Ricky talks his boss at the Cafe, Signor
Giovanni Vittorino, into backing a show starring himself and Judy.
Meanwhile, because Jerrold has threatened to quit Hillary's
play, Sylvia promises to marry him. Heartbroken, she sends Olga out
with a message for Ricky, but Olga loses it and forgets all about it when
she is given a part in the show.
As opening night for Hillary's play approaches, a child
welfare agent attempts to stop Judy from appearing in the play because she
is under age, but Olga has the man arrested as a kidnapper.
Discovering finally that Judy is not in Europe and fearing that she really
has been kidnapped, they go to the police station, where they learn that she
is appearing in Ricky's play. They go to the theater to stop her but,
seeing her perform, they realize that the stage is where she belongs.
Finally, the play is a success, Ricky and Sylvia are reunited, and Olga
chases after her long-lost love Boris, who is now driving a taxi. |
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