Themes: Battle of the Sexes, Workplace Romance, Opposites Attract
Main Cast: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, Buster Keaton, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg
Release Year: 1949
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
Plot
In the Good Old Summertime is a musical remake of the 1940 Ernst Lubitsch comedy The Shop Around the Corner, which in turn was based on a play by Miklos Laszlo. The locale has been changed from Hungary to Chicago, but the turn-of-century time frame and the plot remain the same. Van Johnson and Judy Garland play a couple of clerks in a sheet-music store who detest each other on sight. Both reserve their words of affection for their respective pen pals, whom they've never met. The audience, of course, is aware that Johnson is Garland's pen pal, and she his, but it's fun to anticipate the fireworks when the characters on screen make this discovery. Buster Keaton, then employed by MGM as a "comedy consultant," is provided with one of his best parts in years as the bumbling nephew of shop owner S.Z. Sakall. The songs sung in Summertime consist of period numbers like "I Don't Care", "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie", and the title tune. This is the film in which 18-month-old Liza Minnelli (Garland's daughter) toddles into the closing number, though it is not her film debut, as has often been claimed: an even younger Minnelli popped up briefly in Garland's previous MGM musical Easter Parade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
In the Good Old Summertime is a peppy and unassuming musical whose modest but undeniable charms will be enjoyed most by audiences unfamiliar with the movie (The Shop Around the Corner) upon which it is based. Although it has drastically changed Shop's setting, Summertime does keep a surprising amount of the movie's wonderful dialogue, even as if plays havoc with some of the plot essentials, resulting in a movie that is curiously devoid of all but the smallest dramatic tension. This, of course, places a significant burden on the talents of its cast, and Summertime is quite fortunate here. If Van Johnson cannot equal the work of Jimmy Stewart in Shop, he is still an excellent choice for the musical version. Even better is Judy Garland, who is in superb voice and delivers a knock-out "Put Your Arms Around Me Honey," a lively "I Don't Care" and a touching "Merry Christmas." She's also in peak comedic form, delivering an exceptional performance even when the script falls prey to hokeyness, as it does on occasion. The supporting cast is quite good, even if Buster Keaton is largely wasted, Robert Z. Leonard's direction is fine and the period costumes are quite colorful. If Summertime is not the perfect musicalization of Shop -- that honor belongs to the stage show, She Loves Me -- it is still an enjoyable little romp. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
The film is a musical adaptation of the 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, and written by Miklós László (who is given recognition in the credits for another adaptation, You've Got Mail) based on his play. For In the Good Old Summertime, the locale has been changed from Hungary to Chicago, but the turn-of-century time frame and the plot remain the same.
Trivia
It was filmed between October 1948 and January 1949. Garland's three-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli makes her film debut in the musical, walking alongside her mother and Van Johnson during the closing scene.
The film was made during the height of strain on the relationship between Garland and the MGM production company. In the Good Old Summertime was the second to last film that Judy Garland made at MGM (with the final being Summer Stock). MGM terminated Garland's contract in September 1950.
Garland, as Veronica Fisher, enters Oberkugen's music shop, looking for work. Little does she know that a pen pal, Van Johnson as Andrew Larkin, with whom she has been corresponding, is a salesman in the shop. Oberkugen refuses to employ her until she persuades a wealthy matron, through her singing and musical expertise, to buy an Amboy harp at almost $25 over Oberkugen's list price. Larkin resents her, and their relationship is quarrelsome, yet he continues to write doting letters to his pen pal at post office box 237. In spite of their bickering, they are profoundly attracted to each other at work, but keep their interest covert under a barrage of arguments.
Garland is at the height of her vocal powers. She is effervescent and charming; and Van Johnson, as seductively virile as he is boyish and winsome. The movie is charming with the scintillating S.Z. Sakall pouting along as the engaging and tender-hearted ogre of a boss, Mr. Oberkugen.
Garland introduced the Christmas song "Merry Christmas" in this film; it was later covered by Johnny Mathis and Bette Midler.
Buster Keaton devised a way for a violin to get broken that would be both comic and plausible. Keaton came up with an appropriate fall, and the filmmakers then realized he was the only one who would be able to execute it properly, so they cast him in the film. Keaton also devised the sequence in which Van Johnson inadvertently wrecks Judy Garland's hat, and coached Johnson intensively in how to perform the scene. This was the first MGM film Keaton appeared in since being fired from the studio in 1933.
The Silent Command •Heritage •Judge Not; or The Woman of Mona Diggings •Secret Love •The Crippled Hand •The Love Girl •Little Eve Edgarton •The Plow Girl •The Eagle's Wing (with Rufus Steele) •On Record •A Mormon Maid •The Primrose Ring •At First Sight •Princess Virtue •Face Value •The Bride's Awakening •Her Body in Bond •Modern Love •Danger, Go Slow •The Scarlet Shadow •The Delicious Little Devil •What Am I Bid? •Big Little Person •The Way of a Woman •The Miracle of Love
