Summer Stock (1950)

Directed by Charles Walters. Starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven, Phil Silvers, Marjorie Main, Ray Collins, Carleton Carpenter.

Garland is none too happy about her family farm being overrun by a theater troupe led by director Kelly, but, aw shucks, she comes around eventually. Judy’s final MGM production is a lot of frivolous, utterly predictable hokum, as one would expect, but it’s not that great even on the terms of a toe-tapping Technicolor “backyard musical.” The best dance partner Kelly has to work with is a sheet of newspaper during an instrumental reprisal of “You Wonderful Year”; the only catchy song number, meanwhile, is “Get Happy,” which arrives near the very end, and doesn’t exactly mesh with the rest of the movie (no surprise that it was shot and added a few months after filming had wrapped). Silvers’ broad comic relief is an acquired taste, to put it kindly.

49/100