Steineded How sad is this?

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Charles Herold (cherold) For Me and My Gal is a rather odd bird. Set during World War I, The film begins by positioning itself as a tribute to the days of vaudeville, with sweet singer Judy Garland meeting obnoxious dancer Gene Kelly on tour. The two predictably team up after doing an impromptu version of For Me and My Gal that is the best thing in the movie.Then the movie wanders into soap opera before pulling the various war- themed threads together into a typical WWII rah-rah boost for contributing to the war effort.The story is a bit of a mess. I suspect the U.S. entry into WWII happened after the film was greenlighted and parts of it were grafted on as part of the war morale-boosting that was an inevitable part of most early 40s movies. There is a lack of cohesion, most notably with George Murphy's character, who feels like the vestigial tail of the original script. The movie also feels a little self-serving in its emphasis on the importance of entertainment for the troops. I feel this movie would have been done better if it's story had been allowed to play out without worries about patriotic fervor.Kelly is likable in his film debut, but his character is unsympathetic, and apparently the studio had to do a lot of reshooting before audiences could leave the theater not hating him. Garland is charming as she leaves her juvenile roles behind, although I can never be totally happy with any Garland movie that doesn't include at least one ballad. They have good chemistry, but it is better featured in The Pirate, which they made later on.The reason to watch a movie like this is for the musical numbers, but while these are good, there isn't much that is memorable (surprisingly director Busby Berkeley didn't do any of his trademark synchronized- chorus-girl numbers). There are also big chunks of the movie where the musical numbers disappear in favor of the story, which just highlights its weaknesses.Overall this isn't a horrible movie, but it's not one I'd particularly recommend.

writers_reign It may well be that the powers that be decided that after signing Gene Kelly for one movie on the strength of his leading role in Pal Joey on Broadway it might be an idea to have him play another heel, i.e. to replicate his role as Pal Joey. Whatever that is exactly what he does until the inevitable volte face when he decides to allow the love of a good woman to reform him. It's unusual inasmuch as there is not one original number, the entire score consists of numbers that were the mainstay of vaudeville which is fitting as this is, in one respect, a valentine to the old two-a-day schtick on the Keith-Orpheum circuit. Garland and Kelly work well together and George Murphy weighs in as the nice guy who loses the girl to the heel. Nothing particularly memorable but neither is it chopped liver.

edwagreen Terrific plot underscores this great 1942 musical starring Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and George Murphy. While Murphy is relegated to a totally supporting role in this film, it was more than worth it as he holds his own.The musical numbers including the title song are marvelously staged. The tempo picks up as classic World War 1 songs are sung by Miss Garland and Mr. Kelly.You would never think that a Garland-Kelly musical with the two falling in love and fighting off temptation to abandon each other so as to advance in their careers would fall upon such tragedy here. Who would ever expect that the plot would finally revolve about Kelly's way to avoid selective service so that he could play at his beloved Palace Theater, only to incur the wrath of Garland whose brother is killed in the war.This was definitely the best of the 3 films that Garland and Kelly made together. The others were "The Pirate" (1948) and Garland's last film for MGM-"Summerstock," in 1951Note that this film came only after 3 years of Judy's "The Wizard of Oz," and yet she shows a phenomenal maturity here thus breaking out of her teenage role tradition. It was all uphill for Judy after this one.Who sang for Martha Eggert in the film? Whoever it was did a fantastic job.This heartwarming piece is a piece of Americana at its best.

gkeith_1 Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. Busby does well as a director. Judy, George and Gene are great dancers. I love the dancing doll scene in the beginning with Judy and George, and Judy's and Gene's later dance scenes. George had great finesse. He danced with Fred Astaire in the Broadway Melody of 1940, I think. Ben Blue is always great in acting, singing and dancing. He does comedic female character impersonations very well. He was a very talented choreographer and dance coach, I think. He is wonderful in this film. Gene's first film role portrays him initially as obnoxious and unpopular, and he is even a coward by faking an injury to keep from fighting in World War One. Later on in this film, he goes overseas as a YMCA entertainer. He gets nicer later in this film, and of course his dancing is superb. Elsie Janis was on the NY Palace marquee in this film. She, for real, entertained in Europe during World War One, and was called the Sweetheart of the AEF. She was billed as Elsie Janis and Her Gang. In this film, however, Judy is billed as the Sweetheart of America, then you see AEF (American Expeditionary Force) on the curtain. Judy appears as Jo Hayden and Her Gang. I think that this is a travesty. The real Elsie Janis was from here, in Columbus, Ohio, and she is a legend. She even owned a large home here, across from The Ohio State University. Finally, there is the film Yankee Doodle Dandy, also made in 1942 like For Me and My Gal. It is also made during WWII, and talks about WWI. In both films, there are WWI female singers encouraging the troops. There are also both James Cagney and Gene Kelly being rejected for military service in WWI. Gene and Jimmy both happen to be great tap dancers. "Over There", George M. Cohan's authored song, even appeared in For Me and My Gal. There are military troops marching in both films. Both films are in black and white, which I do not like, especially for musicals. Judy and Gene would later appear in The Pirate and Summer Stock. There may be other films, but I am not sure.