Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Steven Torrey Despite the superior acting, singing, dancing; despite the quality of the music--which is excellent--like the other Freed/Berkeley productions featuring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney--this movie cannot transcend its severe limitations. And the performance they deliver is excellent. Mickey Rooney channels FDR most excellently; Judy Garland mimics Eleanor most excellently. In Blackface, they seem to gather an energy and momentum that cannot be stopped or topped. And yet like the other 3--the movie simply grows tiresome--one viewing every ten years seems about right.And there really does need to be a note about Blackface. This was not intended to insult Black people--the Jim Crow laws did that. Mickey, Judy, Berkeley, Freed, etc. all would have grown up with seeing the Minstrel Show as entertainment; not for a moment would they have considered this demeaning to Black people. Those songs they sing in imitation of old vaudeville days--were very real in their mind; just consider your own life and realize how songs popular in our youth still stay within our mind as fresh well into our old age. So too with the Minstrel Shows--they would stay with the performers long after they had seen them.

mark.waltz Warner Brothers took the Dead End Kids and taught them the law. MGM simply gave their teen brigade and gave them tap shoes. Those teens are lead by the rambunctious Mickey Rooney and the peppy but vulnerable Judy Garland who sang and danced their way into the hearts of the world with this schmaltzy but energetic musical. Loosely based upon the 1937 Broadway hit, it lacks many of the original Rodgers and Hart songs in favor of an original score by Roger Edens. The basic plot remains concerning the children of traveling vaudevillians who decide to put on their own show in order to avoid reform school. In the process, buddies Garland and Rooney discover adolescent love in spite of his distraction by a perky former child star. The duo's real life starts in vaudeville correlates with their character's, giving it a bit of irony. Rooney received his first Oscar Nomination for this, basically a continuation of what he had already been doing with the Andy Hardy series. The only difference is here, he sings and dances, quite remarkably, yet with all of the incredible performances in 1939, his inclusion really gives me this reaction: ? As for Garland, she gives a truly versatile performance, combining tenderness and spunk, never hamming it up yet winning attention by commanding it, not demanding it. She truly steals your heart when she sings "I Cried for You", a solo equal in power to Over the Rainbow from the same year's "The Wizard of Oz". In an odd historical note, Garland was not nominated for an Oscar for either film, although a supporting performance by Greer Garson in "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was.Musically, only the title song and "Where or When" remain from the stage show which is on rare occasions still revived. A studio cast album shows that the cut songs deserved better recognition than they got here. Obviously, Garland didn't get to sing the show's most famous song, "The Lady is a Tramp" which is still heard as background music without the racy lyrics. Lena Horne did perform it in the Rodgers and Hart bio-pic, Words and Music. The title number is a highlight, although in retrospect, the group seems self serving, unrealistic and destructive in starting a bonfire. The over-stuffed minstrel show has raised eyebrows with its black-face segments, while the patriotic finale is like something you'd never see on Broadway, let alone in a small-town barn. Elements of both numbers are very dated. The constant close-ups of diaper clad tots may make you gag after a few seconds. Garland and Rooney are a fine team and certainly share much chemistry. Douglas McPhail and Betty Jaynes provide noble support, while June Preisser is the Kristen Chenoweth of her era. Guy Kibbee is a kindly judge and Margaret Hamilton is a well- meaning town matron who only a few months later would taunt Judy once again, albeit in green make-up. Busby Berkeley takes the elaborate choreography and military like drill marching but lacks the camp of earlier musicals and a later banana clad Carmen Miranda.

Hunt2546 It's an early Freed Unit picture, and among other Freed staples it has the work of Roger Edens, snatches of "Singing in the Rain" and "Good Morning," plus a whisper of "Broadway Rhythm." But it's kind of cuckoo. The director is Busby Berkeley, who wanted everything BIG even when the movie was supposed to be SMALL. Thus BB encourages the Mickster to go into his full Eugene O'Neill mode and he out-shouts everyone in the movie, including the hurricane! That is, when he's not on the verge of tears. If a woman had so over-heated, you'd say it's her time of the month; I can only guess Mick's ego went nuclear and BB wasn't interested enough to rein him in. He may not have even noticed. The most absurd stroke is that Rooney clearly believed he was a great impressionist too, and BB let him do crude impersonations of Gable and Barrymore, among others, that seem pointless and self- congratulatory. Judy is early Judy: shy, more Dorothy Gale than the windstorm of talent she'd become in later Freed masterpieces like "Meet Me in St. Louis" and so forth. Some other oddities, or at least they seem odd now: a big number in which Mick and the "kids" march through the streets of a Long Island coastal town, carrying torches and proclaiming that they are the future has an odd Nazi vibe to it. Creepy. Then there's baritone Doug McPhail who was five years from suicide; he's the next Nelson Eddy except there was no next Nelson Eddy which may be why he poisoned himself. Johhny Sheffield, later to be "Boy" to Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan, is briefly glimpsed and such MGM regs as Guy Kibbee and Margaret Hamilston are around to ground the movie in solid professionalism. It's sure watchable, even today, but now you think: these people thought they were riding the wave and the wave was coming in to crush THEM.

MartinHafer The adults in this film are all Vaudeville stars. However, now that the age of talking pictures is here, they have all fallen on hard times. So, it's up to the spunky teens (most of which appear to be in their mid-20s) to save the day by proving they ARE the stars of the future and making enough money to save their bankrupt folks--who have no confidence in their talented youths.Technically speaking, "Babes in Arms" is a very good movie. After all, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and the rest of the relatively young cast are immensely capable singers and dancers. You can't help but marvel at such talent and energy. Although this movie was hugely successful and led to many sequels, it's amazingly hard to sit through the film today--mostly since tastes have changed and this sort of film is clearly passé. I really struggled to stick with the film but couldn't pay attention because there were just so many songs that it lost my interest. Now I am NOT a person who hates 1930s Hollywood films--in fact, these are the sort of films I enjoy most and I have probably reviewed a couple thousand. But these musicals bore me because there isn't that much plot and the singing is incessant. If you like this, then by all means watch it--I just couldn't. This film is not like a fine wine that gets better with age--it's more like a nice loaf of bread.