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The Harvey Girls

The Harvey Girls

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the best movie!!
Review: The Harvey Girls is definitely one of the best film I have ever seen. It has very good songs and Judy looked as beautiful as ever! A must see movie!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Clean Fluff
Review: The Harvey Girls is pure fluff, but's it's very well done fluff. It's really just a vehicle for a series of song and dance routines, tied together by a simple story of a girl who moves to the wild west and becomes a Harvey Girl. Harvey Girls were waitresses in restaurants along the old Santa Fe railroad lines.

The plot has a little - and I emphasize little - bit of everything: Romance, comedy, drama, and action. My favorite scene was when Judy Garland retrieves the fresh meat that was stolen from the Harvey House.

The music is great, and the cinematography is dazzling. This is a very colorful movie, and the DVD brings it out in all its glory. I did, however, notice some subtle color shifting in several scenes. That was mildly annoying. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and the 101 minute running time won't take up too much of your busy day. I recommend this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: SPECTACULAR!!!!!
Review: The Harvey Girls is set in an old rustic town called Sandrock. She gets set up supposoly with a rich,handsome, and nice guy, but when she gets to Sandrock she finds just a drunk and goofy guy. This movie is great! Order it and watch it for yourself!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It Never Fails to Disappoint Me
Review: The very first time I saw "The Harvey Girls", it was during a Judy Fest on the "11:30 Movie" late at night when I was maybe 13. One night I saw "Meet Me in St. Louis", and then this movie was the next night. What a comedown! I didn't like it then, and having seen it again twenty-odd years later, I still didn't. Why?

1. Weak score: This movie has ONE famous number, "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe". Now, that's a great number, and the production of it is obviously expensive. It's really quite exciting. But the problem is that this wonderful song is just about the first song in the movie--there's nothing remotely like it again. The rest of the songs are completely unmemorable and dull. So they shot their lightning bolt far too early, if you ask me.

2. Mostly insignificant cast: Well, we all know Judy and Ray Bolger, and Angela Lansbury too, and if you're very clever, even John Hodiak. But bag the rest of the characters. Even with all the others I named, I felt like Judy was alone in this movie.

3. Anti-woman plot device: Women are either one or the other in this town, waitresses or a lady of ill repute. Nice or nasty, period. Well, for it all, I thought Angela the madam was looking pretty good; what amazing hair! Sexually experienced women are unpleasant, whereas virginal waitresses are apparantly virginal about everything else in life too: Judy does her usual "I have low self-esteem and can't do anything right" schtick. But what I found particularly objectionable was the very end, when Judy thinks she has lost Mr. Hodiak forever to the madam. She approaches the madam, still clad in her waitress uniform, and announces her intention to become essentially a lady of ill repute, too. This, we learn, she will do because it is evidently what Mr. Hodiak will respond most to. If that isn't a negative message, I don't know what is. She's ready to go against every principle she has, for some stupid guy. Or even for a smart guy, it would be wrong. Of course, the madam will have none of it, and fixes things so that Judy and John can (we surmise) marry like they should.

People trash John Hodiak as the romantic lead, but I find him personally attractive. What would have been interesting, though, would have been for Judy to get hooked up with Ray Bolger, but wishful thinking there.

Ergo, I don't think anyone who has seen the better MGM musicals would like "The Harvey Girls" all that much. Many surpass it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bravo! Bravo!
Review: This is definetly one of Judy Garland's best movies. I think the songs are great,and Judy is so funny when she holds up the bar across the street just to please her customers. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you have to see the movie to understand. I also loved the casting. Angela Lansbury was wonderful and the "villian". And for anybody who's a Judy Garland fan, you must see this!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite musicals! In my opinion, it is better than A Star Is Born. What a delightful cast & music! MGM, we want more Judy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ONE OF JUDY'S BEST WITHOUT A DOUBT!
Review: This is one of my personal favorites of the Judy Garland collection. "The Harvey Girls" has everything you could ask for in a bright, bouncy MGM musical: song, dance, comedy, drama, romance, action and fun. Garland plays Susan Bradley, a young Ohio girl who sets out to Arizona to wed, but instead decides to join a group of Harvey girls, waitresses at the newly established Harvey House. "Wherever a Harvey House stands, civilization is not far behind." The girls want to try to civilize the town of lusty cowpokes... but they have competition: an infamous brothel across the street, boasting some, er, charming madams headed by the sassy Em (a young Angela Lansbury)... and they are equally determined to drive the reforming parties out of town. They steal a cache of beef from the House (which gives us a hilarious scene in which Garland goes to retrieve the meat), shoot down chandeliers in the girls' bed chambers, and plant rattlesnakes in their dressing rooms. Between these messy episodes, Garland manages to find love with a young man (John Hodiak)... who also just happens to run the brothel. This film has a wonderful musical score, including the Oscar-winning "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe", "It's A Great Big World", and "Oh,You Kid!" among them. Certainly one of MGM's best musicals with a great supporting cast: including in fact, a post-Scarecrow Ray Bolger ("The Wizard of Oz"), Cyd Charisse, Chill Wills, and Virginia O'Brien, "The Harvey Girls" is a great big, bawdy musical that's always worth seeing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best Western of all time
Review: This mixes music, comedy, drama and love together beautifully, an excellent supporting cast including angela lansbury [I cant watch any of her other films without hating her-no one should be mean to Judy] and Charisse is sweet[even if she was dubbed]Virginia O'Brien is a good actress but doesn't sing with any feeling, John Hodaik is brilliant but the person who really makes this film unforgettable is Judy Garland. She is allowed to display many of her talents and has me in stitches, she also delivers her bitchy comebacks wonderfully and I don't need to even mention her singing.

Ray Bolger is good also but unfortunately his character is little different from the brainless scarecrow from the wizard of oz.

The songs are amazing, especially the 8 minute production number, the Harvey Girls song is also good, there are only a few other songs, a couple of them would be instantly forgettable if they weren't sung by Judy Garland.

The woman from Meet Me In St Louis is really funny.

all in all one of mgm's greatest!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best movies you'll see!
Review: This movie contains very good songs and dances. It is one that I would suggest to anyone. It is very interesting and keeps you on the edge of your seat at all times. You must see it! It is about a mail order bride(Judy Garland), who goes to a little town called Sandrock and doesn't find at all what she expects. She expects to find a wonderful man, but finds a drunk. She then finds out that he didn't even write the letters. She then decides to work for The Harvey House as a waitress, there are many problems that she faces, she thinks that Ned Trent is causing them. Ned is the one who really wrote the letters. Ned owns the Alhambra a bar which is competing with The Harvey House. They have there difficults, but get through them together. They both fall in love and they get married at the end!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: That Garland Magic!
Review: To those people who are new to a Judy Garland musical, excluding those who have seen OZ. I highly recommend mandatory Judy Garland Musical watching. No one in this life, past or present can ever compare to this stunning singer and actress as she was and still is the greatest musical star ever. Streisand attempted to take her place in the late 60's but lets be honest. No one ever could. Judy is in a category all her own. The Harvey Girls is just another example of her brilliance as entertainer. Watch "One Take Judy" as George Sidney affectionately calls her as he remembers in the audio commentary of her delivering one of her most memorable performances in one take, yes one take of Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. She generally recorded her songs in one take and could watch a stand in doing the movements before camera and step in and do it exactly in one take. Amazing. This film is one of those examples of that talent. The songs in the movie are all very well crafted with stunning results like the opening song, "In the Valley where the evening sun goes down" and It's a great big world". Virginia O'Brien adds some sass, which we miss later in the film after she has exited due to pregnancy. I always wondered why her character disappears without a word and this audio commentary explains all. Angela Lansbury is interesting to watch being that she was all of 18 years old and plays a worldly older woman to Judy's character and does it excellently. Its interesting hearing her do an American accent so well. She never looked more beautiful than in this film. Glorious Technicolor is very well utilized in this film. The restoration work that went into this film is amazing. It is crystal clear and the colors, oh the colors! For anyone who has never seen this film I recommend it greatly. They just don't make it like this any more.


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