If Technicolor MGM finesse is enough to stun you (and it easily can be enough) then THE HARVEY GIRLS is 3D color heaven. As a musical and as a movie, I found it weirdly flat. In Australia where these films were huge box office successes, MGM reissued many of their 40s and 50s musicals right up to the late 60s. The few that were not on the reissue list included THE HARVEY GIRLS. ... whether it was too American (!?) or whether it just did not have the pizazz or the fantasy we in Oz seem to love, I am not sure but I can feel my reasons why I became bored with it. On the plus side, I was constantly enchanted with gorgeous Garland aged 22, the breathtaking Technicolor photography and any close up of Angela Lansbury, clothed to the dazzling hilt. I can see how and why this film went through various changes during production and it feels like an overdressed version of another more ordinary western gussied into being a 1945 musical. OKLAHOMA's 1943 stage success is quite evident. Research shows that MGM saw a chance to emulate OKLAHOMA'ssuccessful stage result and contrived a western on the production conveyor belt into a pseudo OKLAHOMA - ish movie by wrangling THE HARVEY GIRLS into the form it is now. This explains why the film seems disjointed and pieced from different imagery and ideas. I found John Hodiak creepy with his odd teeth/mustache (that scary grin!) and no leading romantic man for Judy. I don't know what a Doagie is and I can't for the life of me see how the Joan Of Arc style bonfire number could have ever fitted into the finished film... which to me is startling in its exorcist/hell imagery with Judy looking like she is about to scream and melt. It is another weirdness in/out of a film full of off kilter ideas that seem to have been added as afterthoughts. Marjorie main has a great 'setting the table' number, and silly Ray Bolger again flips and wiggles out of place... looking like another weird addition among the rest. The big number at the start is fantastic, the set wonderful, the train line through the main street eye catching, and again the costume design and color photography superb. There is great use of the colour orange... whether as oleanders or with black and white stripes, but it is a keen colour featured throughout. It's all like a mosaic tile floor that is a movie.
Review of The Harvey Girls
