Babes In Arms

There's really not much story here, and any musical number without Rooney/Garland is a dud. The blackface scene is tasteless and inexcusable, but I'm not factoring it into this review. Rooney has enough charisma to carry this film for the parts that work, but Singin' In The Rain is a vastly superior film featuring a lot of the same songs and a thematically similar plot.

I love this movie! mickey and judy were so cute together! the only thing i dont like is the black faces. its really creepy, especially with mickey

I would rate this movie five stars if there wasn't any black face stuff. Otherwise, it's a great movie.

One could argue it was the style of the times, and that would be true. But that doesn't make it any easier seeing Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland performing in "black face." As much as I adore the classic MGM musicals, my skin crawls seeing just a portion of this number in the trailer. When do we stop giving these films and the companies that promote them a pass....?

This classic MGM movie was the first in a series of successful musicals pairing Hollywood legends Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. As the teenaged children of struggling vaudevillians, they dream of making it big on Broadway. Directed by Busby Berkeley and loaded with memorable songs by the likes of Rodgers and Hart and Arthur Freed, this film delivers. Garland and Rooney were really the first American Idols. They sing, dance, act, and perform comedy material with unparalleled ease, and they supply a lot of fresh zip to the charmingly cliched backstage plot. Babes In Arms was a huge box-office smash in 1939. Rooney, the most popular movie star in the country at the time, was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance. This was the first film Garland made after her success earlier that year in The Wizard of Oz, for which she won a special Academy Award.