Before the season gets away from us entirely (and I won’t be sorry to see it go) allow me to offer another in my series of recommendations for your light summer reading and viewing pleasure:
Movie: “For Me and My Gal” (1942) This frothy little musical is based loosely on the life of an actual vaudeville performer, Harry Palmer (1889-1962) and centers on his show biz career where it intersected with World War I. In the film, he teams up with Joanne (Jo) Hayden on stage and off, but their climb to the top — a contract to play the Palace Theatre in NYC, the dream of every vaudevillian — is sidetracked when Harry is drafted. Jo’s brother, Danny, has already left medical school to serve and been killed; so when Harry deliberately injures his hand to delay his induction at least long enough for Palmer and Hayden to play the Palace, Jo throws him over in righteous indignation.
How Harry redeems himself in the eyes of Jo and the world at large was a last-minute addition to the picture as preview audiences couldn’t bear for Harry to remain a louse.
“For Me and My Gal” was pure World War II propaganda, since the U.S. had recently entered the conflict — but it is directed by Busby Berkeley with such a gentle, nostalgic touch that the audience doesn’t find the rah-rah stuff too heavy-handed. Palmer and Hayden are deftly and endearingly played by Gene Kelly (in his movie debut) and Judy Garland, whose optimistic and talented Jo Hayden centers the action. Garland shines in the musical numbers, especially the rambunctious “Ballin’ the Jack” with Kelly, and her solo “After You’ve Gone” — which she manages to make by turns raucous and poignant.
Kelly, fresh off his star turn on Broadway in Rodgers and Hart’s “Pal Joey,” admitted freely that he had Garland to thank for the success of his first movie role. A seasoned Hollywood veteran at the age of 20, Garland guided and supported him through his baptism of fire, endlessly patient with his questions and rookie jitters. The fine and genuinely affectionate onscreen chemistry between them lasted through the three movies they made together. He returned the favor years later by joining her in her final MGM effort, “Summer Stock,” a fairly pedestrian flick, where his growing fame bolstered her rapidly fading star.
“For Me and My Gal” is one of Garland’s first truly adult roles after her rocket to stardom in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) and her performance is so tender and genuine, so sparkling and buoyant, that you can’t take your eyes off her, even when she’s dancing next to one of Hollywood’s greatest hoofers.
Kelly is predictably cast in an echo of his “Pal Joey” character, and his charming heel reformed by love is compelling enough to recapture the audience after his monumental fall from grace. An appealing supporting cast of light-weight dancer George Murphy, comic relief Ben Blue, always reliable Keenan Wynn as Harry’s agent and the surprisingly sympathetic soprano vamp Marta Eggerth (who would join Garland again the following year in “Presenting Lily Mars”) carries the peripheral business of the plot capably.
Busby Berkeley, best known for his overhead geometric shots with chorus girls from early 1930s musicals, manages to avoid that sort of over-the-top nonsense and keeps the plot grounded in love story and show business success. From the opening scenes at a small town train station to the final reprise of the title song, you’ll relish this sweet little period piece, and maybe even revisit some of its best musical numbers, especially Kelly and Garland’s first duet rendition of the title song.” Enjoy!
Books: I have recently discovered and am rapidly losing myself in a series of books known as “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s” by Jodi Taylor. The historians who work at the fictitious St. Mary’s (attached to the fictitious Thirsk University in England) spend their days lurching around the Earth’s timeline, witnessing and recording such historical events as the Battle of Hastings (1066), the Trojan Horse (whenever — or even “if”) the Cretaceous Period (ask a dinosaur), Jack the Ripper (don’t ask) and other high or low points of human or pre-human history.
They time-travel (though their supervisor doesn’t allow them to call it that) in small “pods” which are maintained by technicians. They dress in period garb, but try not to interact with the creatures or people they encounter throughout history, for fear of somehow affecting historical events and screwing up the future. They are there simply to chronicle occurrences, and solve mysteries, such as whether or not Richard III’s crown was actually plucked from a hawthorn bush by Henry VII after the Battle of Bosworth Field.
What makes these books so engrossing is their combination of catch-you-off-guard silly British comedy and edge-of-your-seat action. The historians who people St. Mary’s are “tea-sodden disaster magnets” who cannot seem to help careering from one catastrophe to another, sometimes humorously, but often with nail-biting suspense — and frequently with disastrous, even fatal, consequences. Through it all, narrator Dr. Madeleine “Max” Maxwell stumbles between her professional time-jumping and her chaotic private life, alternately dragging her colleagues along or chasing after them when they get out of hand — which happens about every 12 minutes. It’s a combination of melodrama, comedy, science fiction, history and sheer mayhem, and I have repeatedly sat up till the wee hours because I couldn’t put one of these books down.
The first title in the series is “Just One Damned Thing After Another” and I promise you will be captured entirely by about the third chapter. Fortunately there are soon-to-be 15 titles in the series (“Well, That Could Have Gone Better” is scheduled for release in 2027) and I still have 5 to go, not including the off-shoot short stories and novellas Taylor has added to the series. They are wicked fun, and I hope the prolific Jodi Taylor keeps writing them for the next five decades. I can never get enough — and neither will you!
(By the way, if you read or watch any of my book or movie suggestions, I’d love to hear what you think of them. Feel free to reach out through this newspaper and let me know if you’ve enjoyed my selections as much as I have.)