In the Good Old Summertime (1949)
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, Buster Keaton

Film Review

In the Good Old Summertime is easily one of the most enchanting of the film musicals that Judy Garland made for MGM, and the last in which she was at her best before ill-health and acute personal problems finally took their toll and made her virtually unemployable.  Having recovered from a nervous breakdown midway through the production of The Pirate (1948), Garland seemed to be over the worst of her difficulties, but the strain of her last three films for MGM (Easter Parade, In the Good Old Summertime and Summer Stock) meant that her Hollywood career was virtually over.  None of this is at all evident in In the Good Old Summertime, an exuberant period musical, of the kind that MGM excelled at and in which Garland turns in what is arguably her most captivating performance, assisted by such fine musical numbers as the lively Put Your Arms Around Me Honey and ever-popular Merry Christmas.

Buster Keaton, the legendary comic of the silent era who parted company with MGM back in 1933, was roped in to direct the sequence in which an expensive violin is accidentally smashed to pieces, and ended up playing the character who did the smashing.  Although he is in the background for most of the time, Keaton does come into his own in a few memorable scenes, and even gets to dance with Garland (being very nearly the same height, they are a perfect match).  This was Keaton's last job for MGM, although his career was far from over; he would continue to be employed right up until his death in 1966.  Making her film debut is Garland's two-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli, who appears right at the end of the film.

Van Johnson proves to be admirable choice for Garland's love interest in the film.  Better known for his action hero roles in serious war films, Johnson shows he has a natural flair for comedy and, being an accomplished dancer, he brings almost as much elegance and energy to the film as his vivacious co-star.  The chemistry between Johnson and Garland is spot on, although for most of the time they appear more like brother and sister, affectionately teasing one another, rather than potential lovers.  S.Z. Sakall also makes his presence felt as the pigheaded yet strangely lovable Mr Oberkugen, beautifully partnered by the sweet-natured Spring Byington.  It is largely down to this well-balanced and likeable ensemble that the end result is such a warm and lively film, one that is sweet without being saccharine.

Vincente Minnelli was originally slated to direct the film, but he was replaced by Robert Z. Leonard at the insistence of Garland, as her marriage to Minnelli was under severe strain at the time (the couple divorced a few years later).  Leonard had previously directed Garland in another MGM extravaganza, Ziegfeld Girl (1941), and brings just as much zest and visual flair to In the Good Old Summertime, this time turning out a dazzling Technicolor fairytale which could have made a superb Christmas film (oddly, it was actually released in July).  If the plot is familiar this is because it is taken from Miklós László's play Parfumerie, which had previously been adapted by MGM as the romantic-comedy The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.  Although Judy Garland did bounce back from her personal crises, triumphing in George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954), In the Good Old Summertime feels like the end of an era, the last of her great turns at MGM, where she sparkles like she has never sparkled before.

Film Synopsis

Andrew Larkin is a diligent employee at Oberkugen's music shop in circa 1900 Chicago.  He hopes that soon he will be able to earn enough so that he can marry the female pen-friend he writes to almost every day.  Little does he know that his anonymous pen-friend is Veronica Fisher, who enters his shop one day looking for work.  Veronica makes such a favourable impression on the shop's owner, the fastidious Mr Oberkugen, that she gets a job, and immediately gets off on the wrong foot with Andrew, who resents the fact that she is a better salesperson.   Unaware that Andrew is her mysterious pen-friend, Veronica repays the hostility he shows her, but gradually they begin to warm to one another...