Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: A DATE WITH JUDY (1948) starring Jane Powell, Wallace Beery and Elizabeth Taylor

"You see it's just a matter of a little wiggle here and a little wiggle there. All you have to do is get the right wiggle in the right place at the right time." Carmen Miranda in A DATE WITH JUDY.

It's that time of year again, well, almost. Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away so I'm going to concentrate on romance for the next few weeks on Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film posts.

The cute Jane Powell, the dazzling Elizabeth Taylor.

A DATE WITH JUDY (1948) is a film directed by Richard Thorpe, written by Dorothy Cooper, Dorothy Kingsley and Aleen Lesley based on a popular radio program begun in 1941. The film stars Jane Powell, Wallace Beery and a very young and startlingly beautiful 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor. (In fact, she is so beautiful she almost looks other-worldly. An exotic bloom tucked in among more plebeian blossoms.)

The setting is a make-believe Santa Barbara, California where most of the town's kids hang out at Pops Pharmacy, drinking malts and gossiping about their romantic entanglements. The sort of place where the 'soda-jerk' wears a uniform (with cap) and Pop is usually around to dispense advice. It's a way of life long gone, but looked back on by most of us with affectionate if hazy nostalgia.

Jane Powell and Wallace Beery.

Judy Foster is a vivacious 16 year old miss on the borderline of woman-hood, but still hanging onto her coltish kiddy-ness. She is adorably played by Jane Powell. Her dad, Melvin Foster, is played, incongruously enough, by Wallace Beery, an Oscar winning actor who made a career of curmudgeonly old codgers (mostly in black and white dramas), often with hearts of gold.

Here he's called upon to dance the rhumba and play a devoted family man and hubby to Mrs. Foster (Selena Royle, a very attractive lady of a certain age) in bright Technicolor. And guess what, he pulls it off. Beery is entirely believable and even, dare I say it, a little bit sexy. In fact, he and Carmen Miranda steal the picture from the kiddies. But I'm getting ahead of myself as usual.

Judy Foster lives within the comfortable bosom of a close-knit American family: Mom and dad and pesky little brother Randolph (who wears one of those cut felt 'Jug-head' beanies you might have spotted at a flea market) plus a sweet old grandfather (George Cleveland) known as Gramps. As usual with most of the adults pictured at this time, they all look too old to be who they are (except for maybe, Gramps), but why quibble. It was the style of the time.

Judy has a beautiful singing voice as we are immediately made aware of when from the beginning she's shown rehearsing for the dance at the high school. Her boyfriend Oogie (Ogden) Pringle (Scotty Beckett) is the band's arranger and conductor. His father, the richest man in town (or one of the richest) owns, among other things, the local radio station and is president of the bank. He and his sister Carol (Elizabeth Taylor) are two lonely but self-sufficient rich kids being brought up in a huge house by the family's butler since the father is mostly absent, concerned with his various businesses. The mother is long-gone.

The Pringles live in a big house. The Fosters live in a smaller one. You are meant to prefer the smaller one which is snug and warm and charming. Mr. Foster owns a successful local fish cannery business but it's been years since he was actually out at sea. They have a maid named Nightingale who sings, 'Swing low, sweet chariot...' as she's serving dinner. The Fosters are a very affectionate and loving family.

The Pringles are otherwise, though sister and brother, Carol and Oogie, seem close. However, midway through the film, the all too busy father (Leon Ames) will see the light and return to the bosom of his startled family.

Judy and Carol are best friends, though Carol is meant to be older - she looks 18 or so in the film. Judy relies on Carol's well-meant (and often wrong) advice, especially when it comes to men.

Judy and Oogie have a volatile relationship apparently based on Judy's emotional ups and downs. (You remember what is was like to be 16 - don't you?) Poor befuddled Oogie walks around in a daze, completely at sea when it comes to 'women' - one almost feels sorry for him - he is prone to bad advice from his sister as well. The course of true love n'er did run smoothly as we all know.

Robert Stack, soda-jerk.

Anyway, into the mix comes the new man in town, Stephen I. Andrews  (Robert Stack - totally too old for the part) playing the new 'soda-jerk' at Pop's (who happens to be his grandfather or uncle or whatnot) - we later learn that the guy is working his way through medical school. Stack looks like an undercover cop more than anything else, he just couldn't help himself, even back then.

But Judy takes one look at his rugged physique and decides she's in love. As a favor to Pop, Stephen takes Judy to the big dance since Oogie failed to pick her up on Carol's bad advice. At the dance, Carol takes one look at Stephen and he at 'the prettiest girl in town' (you think?) - and all bets are off.

In the meantime, the Foster's wedding anniversary is coming up - the 20th (though it seems to me it would have been more appropriate to make it the 30th) - and a big celebration is planned at a local club with Xavier Cugat and his orchestra. Mr. Foster wants to surprise Mrs. Foster by learning to rhumba for the big bash. To that end, Foster hires Miss Rosita (Carmen Miranda), Cugat's fiancee and principle singer and dancer, to teach him the dance.

Miss Rosita shows up at he fish canning office every afternoon to instruct Mr. Foster (hilariously) in the terpsichorean art of the rhumba, wiggly hips and all. Those scenes are a hoot. Beery looks like a giant bear attempting to dance.

One, two, three, four, rhumba! Love Carmen's hat.

Mr. Foster tries to keep his secret by stuffing Miss Rosita in a closet so that Judy, paying an impromptu visit to the office, won't see her and guess what he's up to. Uh-oh.

Unfortunately, Judy soon suspects that her father is involved in some hanky-panky. She consults Carol, the all-wise and all-knowing. Carol gives her bogus advice. Judy is devastated. The two girls decide to wait until after the big anniversary bash to break the news to the unsuspecting Mrs. Foster.

In the end, Mr. and Mrs. Foster dance up a storm (adorably), doing the rhumba at their Anniversary bash and all is made clear, all is forgiven and Carmen Miranda gets to slink and sing 'Cuanto le gusta, le gusta, le gusta...!' with Cugat at the helm of the orchestra.

The one and only Carmen Miranda.

A DATE WITH JUDY is a charming movie heavily laced with pleasant nostalgia in which the unlikely pairing of Wallace Beery and Carmen Miranda upstages everyone else. Well, Carmen usually upstaged anyone who appeared in scenes with her anyway. She was a human dynamo on platform heels, a very vivid and likable screen presence. I, for one, adore her. Being a Latina myself, I never took umbrage at her shtick. Instead I appreciated her gusto and talent. She shakes up what would otherwise be a rather sleepy sort of movie musical full of pleasant songs and pleasant if not memorable (except for Liz) small town folk.





Being it's Tuesday, don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom, to see what other films and/or audio visuals, other bloggers are talking about today. 

An aside: of all the main actors in the film, Jane Powell has proven the most long-lived and is still with us at the age of 84. Charmingly so.

ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1932 - 2011)

Such sad news on this snowy day. Yes, we have about 5 inches of snow on the ground today, the sky is gray and there's a fine mist. A sad looking and feeling day all around.

Elizabeth Taylor has died. Once the most exquisitely beautiful woman in the world and a very fine actress, she had been struggling with her health in these later years. I woke up this morning turned on the computer and there was the awful (though not totally unexpected) news. With her continued health problems, I'm actually surprised she made it to 79, but so happy she did. She lived a good long life, I suppose. But it should have been longer. She sure as hell made the most of the time she had though - didn't she? Good for her. What more can anyone ask but that we make the most of the time we're allotted.

I have my own Elizabeth Taylor story to tell because I had the excellent good fortune of having met her many years ago when she was probably at the apex of her extraordinary beauty. A brief meeting, but for me, an indelible one.

In the early sixties I worked for a major magazine in the Fashion Department as assistant to the fashion editor. Unknown to me, the editor was friends with two young men who worked as Taylor's and her then husband Richard Burton's secretaries. One day I came into work and my boss said we were going over to the Plaza Hotel to meet some people and do some work. This was not unusual as my job and hers was one of gadding about NYC, choosing clothes and models, setting up photo shoots and that sort of thing. It was a fun job.

Anyway, we went over to the Plaza, to the Oak Room. On the way my boss told me who we were meeting AND that there was the slight chance we'd also get to meet Elizabeth Taylor. I tried to be cool but I nearly fell out of the taxi with excitement.

Unfortunately I had on a pant suit and women in pants were not then allowed in for lunch at the Oak Room. (Yes, it was THOSE days.) But eventually with a bit of pressure from Miss Taylor's secretary who had met us downstairs for a bite, I was allowed to slip in unobtrusively and covered my offending legs with the draped table cloth.

Shortly thereafter we went upstairs to a suite of rooms and I was shown a small office in which I was to help out with some fashion-related business for Miss Taylor. My boss left and went off to do magazine work but promised she'd be back soon. It was a little odd, but my job was to be flexible and so I was.

During that time I did phone work related to some fashions and accessories that Miss Taylor wanted - things she couldn't do on her own because if she went inside a store she'd be mobbed. If I'm remembering correctly this was shortly after CLEOPATRA had debuted in theaters. While I was in the office, the only people I dealt with were her two secretaries who could not have been nicer, though they were busy enough as well.

After a couple of hours I finished my 'work', my boss returned, and we were ushered by the secretaries down the hall and into a HUGE suite. As we walked in I saw a group of people and heard the magical voice of Richard Burton speaking. I almost dared not look. But I did. There was Elizabeth Taylor, standing (holding a drink I think) while a group of people sat around listening to Burton talking about something or other. She looked over at us from across the room, but made no motion or comment. She did check us out though and that made me smile.

My boss and I were speechless and stood there like two stricken turkeys awaiting their fate. Didn't know what to do. The secretaries were no help since they left us there alone. Oh yeah, we were supposed to walk further into that room and blend in. BLEND!! This was Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and their families - it looked like. And there we were, two dorks HANGING out at the Plaza with the rich and famous. My boss was feeling exactly as I was, I could tell. She was tall and much more glam than I. She was a fashion 'somebody' and, after all, she was friends with the secretaries. But it turned out she'd never met Taylor or Burton either.

So what did we do? We sneaked into the bathroom and stayed there. We were such boobs.

Anyway, we finally left the room and inched our way back into the main part of the suite. The secretaries came and told us everyone was leaving and that we would now get a chance to meet and greet. Gasp!

Well, long story short I hardly remember mumbling hello to Burton, unable really to meet his eyes. He was such an intimidating personality. That part of it is a blur now. I have a better memory of meeting Liz Taylor.

We had been escourted out into the Plaza's hallway where we were told to stand against the wall as the entourage passed by surrounded by bodyguards. One of the secretaries brought Miss Taylor over to meet us. (I kid you not!) She took my hand in hers (I'm 5'4", she was tiny.) and said how glad she was to have met me - ME!! She said she'd been looking forward to meeting me and how sorry we didn't have more time! She looked directly at me and I was flabbergasted knocked for a loop by her incredible beauty up close. But also flustered by her completely down to earth attitude - her 'niceness'. I was floored.

Later, when it was all over and I left the Plaza to go home to the Bronx. I walked on air. Silently, I gloried over everyone I saw in the streets of Manhattan that day. I HAD JUST MET ELIZABETH TAYLOR!!!! I wanted to shout it from the rooftops! Hey, I'm somebody! That's how she'd made me feel. In those few moments. She had that gift.

It was one of the most incredible moments of my life.

I am so saddened today, to read of this beautiful woman's passing. I hope she, as in the film I reviewed yesterday, is being judged fairly as she sails on that interim ship. I hope she's found her happy eternity. If these things exist at all.