Themes: Single Parents, Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Sons
Main Cast: Judy Garland, Dirk Bogarde, Jack Klugman, Aline MacMahon, Gregory Phillips
Release Year: 1963
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 99 minutes
Plot
This is a standard yet uneven drama featuring Judy Garland as Jenny Bowman, a powerful singer who obviously has a passion for the stage and performing. At the same time, she once had a passion for a certain British doctor, David Donne (Dirk Bogarde), that resulted in the birth of a baby boy. Unwilling to be a mom at this point in her career, Jenny gives the boy over to David, and he raises him as though he were an adopted son. David marries, and he and Jenny go their separate ways until many years have passed and, finding herself in London again, Jenny decides to visit her son. David is now a widower, and romantic sparks fly once he and Jenny get together -- raising the question of whether her passion for the stage is still stronger than her passion for David. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
As a total motion picture, I Could Go on Singing is only average. Essentially a backstage soap opera -- with a plot that takes in such genre-standard issues as an illegitimate child, an over-but-not-forgotten romance, the strength of a mother's love, and the harsh personal demands made on dedicated stage performers -- there's little in the script that hasn't been seen before (and often seen better). However, I Could Go on Singing has the advantage of being a musical soap opera, and of having Judy Garland, at the height of her interpretive power, as the woman doing the requisite suffering. Although her voice has lost the luster of its youth, it has gained the edge of a woman who has lived and been through it all. Her performance of the songs -- especially "By Myself," "It Never Was You," and the title number -- are remarkable, the performance of an artist at her peak. Had the script lived up to these moments, this could have been another A Star is Born. Garland is also quite good during the dialogue scenes, and Dirk Bogarde turns in another of his finely detailed characterizations. There's a surprising chemistry between the two stars, which is of great help, and their confrontation scene is excellent. I Could Go on Singing was Garland's final film. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Pauline Jameson - Miss Plimpton; Jeremy Burnham - Young Hospital Doctor; Russell Waters - Reynolds; Gerald Sim - Assistant Manager of Palladium; Leon Cortez - The Busker
Credit
Beatrice Dawson - Costume Designer, Edith Head - Costume Designer, Ronald Neame - Director, John Shirley - Editor, Mort Lindsey - Composer (Music Score), Mort Lindsey - Musical Direction/Supervision, Harold Fletcher - Makeup, Wilfred Shingleton - Production Designer, Arthur Ibbetson - Cinematographer, Saul Chaplin - Producer, Stuart Millar - Producer, Lawrence Turman - Producer, John Hoesli - Set Designer, Robert Dozier - Screen Story, Mayo Simon - Screenwriter
Although not a huge box office success on release, mostly due to its soap opera type plot, it won Garland much praise for her performance. In Bogarde's autobiographies and in the 2004 biography, it is recounted that Judy Garland's lines were substantially rewritten by Bogarde (with Garland's consent).[1]
Judy Garland plays a superstar singer, not unlike herself, named Jenny Bowman. She had met a man 15-16 years before, who was now a prominent physician, played by British actor Dirk Bogarde, and they had produced a child whom she let his father raise in England. Jenny wants to finally see him, but in the end is left to her true home, the stage. Originally titled The Lonely Stage, it was renamed I Could Go On Singing, so that audiences would know it was the first time Garland sang in a movie since A Star Is Born in 1954. The movie contains some thrilling Garland concert musical numbers including By Myself, Hello Bluebird, It Never Was You, and the title song.
"Either you are or you aren't - a Judy Garland fan that is. And if you aren't, forget about her new movie, I Could Go On Singing, and leave the discussion to us devotees. You'll see her in close-up...in beautiful, glowing Technicolor and striking staging in a vibrant, vital performance that gets to the essence of her mystique as a superb entertainer. Miss Garland is - as always - real, the voice throbbing, the eyes aglow, the delicate features yielding to the demands of the years - the legs still long and lovely. Certainly the role of a top-rank singer beset by the loneliness and emotional hungers of her personal life is not an alien one to her..." - Judith Crist, The New York Herald Tribune
"3 stars...Judy Garland is back on screen in a role that might have been custom-tailored for her particular talents. A new song, I Could Go On Singing, provides her with a little clowning, a chance to be gay, a time for wistfulness, an occasion for tears. She and Dirk Bogarde play wonderfully well together, even though the script itself insists on their being mismatched..." - Dorothy Masters, The New York Daily News
Soundtrack and video/DVD releases
It was released on video in 1989, and on DVD in 2004. The soundtrack album was released at the time of the original movie release, and appeared on CD in 2002 along with the Garland album That's Entertainment!
