dfwesley
A most enjoyable romance sprinkled with comedy and pathos. It brought back memories to me as a former soldier: the crowded train stations, the USOs, the partings, and servicemen everywhere. It was so easy to sympathize with the plight of Judy Garland and Robert Walker in one adventure after another. You were kept on edge wondering how the lovers would ever get together the several times they were separated.Jimmy Gleason was always enjoyable,and usually Keenan Wynn, however I thought his drunk was too abrasive. However, I got a big kick out of the humorous way the woman at the counter was eating her dinner while he was hovering over her. I had to smile when I Robert Walker appeared in a bathrobe and pajamas in the hotel. I never heard of servicemen wearing that kind of bedtime attire! He surely didn't have them stuffed in his overnight bag.A wonderful film which I rated highly on all counts and certainly a must see if anyone has missed it.
dougdoepke
Except for the sticky 5-minute church part, this is an utterly charming production. That's thanks mainly to the two stars who are so winsome you may want to hug them. Farm boy Walker's got two days on army leave, alone and in big, strange New York City. That is, until he meets cute office girl Garland. Needless to say, romance in the big city follows. Still, it's one of those precarious wartime romances where everything's on a hurry-up schedule. Then too, can these sorts of rushed attractions endure over a longer time. After all, he's going overseas so she'll be left alone. I guess that's the reason for the movie's heavy church part. Still the scene could have been done in a less heavy-handed way that would have harmonized with the movie as a whole.Anyway, MGM manages to create a convincing big city whirl on their studio lot. Crowds are everywhere, especially with servicemen. But true to wartime form, the movie makes clear that even strangers are generally supportive of one another. That's especially true here of milkman Gleason who befriends the youngsters in open-handed fashion, which they return in charming style when he gets hurt. I'm guessing that Keenan Wynn's obnoxious drunk is meant to show that the city also has a downside.Anyway, it's hard to say enough about the pairing of Garland and Walker. They are the ideal next-door youngsters of that era. More importantly, their romance manages to avoid being too sappy to believe. And even though I guess their respective personal problems were pretty severe (IMDB), you'd never know it from what's on screen. Too bad their lives ended so tragically. Nonetheless, the record they leave here is brimful of charm and beguiling innocence, as is the movie.
weezeralfalfa
After having seen how many Judy Garland-starring musicals?, I was taken by surprise by this unheralded simple love story, released as WWII was winding down. Unfortunately, it had two things going against it for contemporary audiences. firstly, it was the only film until her 40s in which Judy didn't sing one song. Second, with its theme of an extreme shotgun wedding involving a boyish-looking soldier on a short shore leave and a girl he just accidentally met, probably many potential patrons stayed away, hoping to see something that didn't remind them of the now stale war. Nonetheless it was a heart-warming story appropriate for the times. It's often slow moving, with many awkward moments, when the tentative couple are unsure what to do next.To me, the film has a dream-like quality to it, rather like, yes, "The wizard of Oz"!. After all, the basic plot is hardly plausible, given all the psychological, practical, and legal barriers to this story actually happening the way it's presented. Judy's performance and some of the scene set ups also add to the dream-like quality. While Joe(Robert Walker) soon is sure that Alice(Judy) is a right girl for him, a shot-gun romantic dalliance with a fly-by-night nobody corporal, let alone marriage, goes against all Alice's stated principles. Besides, Joe has his heart set on returning to his Indiana small town and becoming a carpenter, whereas Alice says she hoes to stay in NYC, having moved there from the Midwest several years ago. But, Joe's extreme persistence, best exemplified by his running after the bus taking her home after they agree to part, finally begins to wear down Alice's formidable psychological defenses.I have one major criticism. Alice becomes very defensive at Joe's probing questions regarding her romantic life, while they are having dinner during their evening date. In fact, she almost leaves him there. Next thing we know, they are strolling through a woods(presumably Central Park), deep in thought and conversion about their relationship. Joe argues that clearly their accidental meeting in the train station was predestined by some higher power. Now, Alice says she agrees, implying that she might be ready to throw caution to the wind and accept a marriage proposal. A formal proposal doesn't come until they later loose contact with each other in the bustle of the subway station, and finally are reunited when both decide to go to the spot where they first bumped into each other. Meanwhile, they engage in a passionate kiss before realizing that the midnight clock has struck, and there are no more buses to take Alice home. While looking for a taxi, they are befriended by a milkman, who had begun his nightly delivery route. Thus begins the much more lively second portion of the film.Alice and Joe, being apparently ordinary conservative young people, with otherwise little in common, their interactions as a couple are mostly superficial and boring, excepting their several instances of nearly permanently losing touch with each other, and their exasperating experiences in trying to obtain a marriage license within 24 hrs. in a world where the usual absolute minimum is 3 days. Otherwise, it's some of the character actors and their interactions with these characters that provide much of the interest. There's James Gleason, as the friendly milkman, who gives them some go-ahead encouragement about their still wobbly relationship. There's Keenan Wynn, as a talkative drunk, who injects some badly needed excitement into the proceedings in one scene. Later, there are several characters involved in the mad race to obtain a marriage license before Joe has to leave. Usually, initially, they give the couple the run around, then try to help them skirt the normal bureaucratic maze when they realize their extreme time-limited situation.Curiously, after they finally extract a marriage license, they are remarkably somber while eating in a restaurant. Then, Judy begins to sob hysterically, complaining that she doesn't really feel married. It turns out that she really regrets the lack of a church wedding, not just the hurried civil ceremony. In lieu of a church ceremony, they enter a church and, without the benefit of a clergyman, say their wedding vows to each other, which they read from a pew book. In the parting scene, when Joe has to take the train to his ship, there is no crying by Alice. She is confident that Fate will take care of Joe and he will return in one piece to take her to his small town.While Walker was romancing Judy on screen, director Minnelli was romancing her off screen, and they would become engaged by the end of production. Judy had requested Minnelli as the finishing director, being dissatisfied with the original director.It turned out that Walker and Judy would once again be featured together, the next year, in the Jerome Kerns-honoring musical extravaganza "'Til the Clouds Roll By". Walker, playing Kerns, has another unlikely love-at-first-sight romance with another, while Judy played the historic singer Marilyn Miller.
