The Harvey Girls (1946)

The Harvey Girls
Directed by George Sidney
Written by Edmund Beloin, Nathaniel Curtis et al from a novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams
1946/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] H.H. Hartsey: Now wait a minute Ms. Bradley. I wanna marry ya, I wanna marry ya somethin’ like all get-out. I wanna marry ya somethin’ awful ma’amm. But please ma’am, please say no.[/box]

The best part is in all those clips. Who would not thrill to Judy Garland singing “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” with a cast of thousands? Sadly, the rest of the movie, while pleasant enough, never reaches that height.

An opening title informs us that Fred Harvey and his train station restaurants, with their “Harvey Girl” waitresses, civilized the Wild West.  Our story begins as a bevy of these beauties heads to Sandrock by train to open Harvey’s latest.  Traveling with them is the feisty Susan Bradley (Garland) who is going to Sandrock to become a mail order bride. When she arrives, she discovers that her intended is a middle-aged rube (Chill Wills) whose letters were ghost written by saloon owner Ned Trent (John Hodiak).  Susan gives Ned a piece of her mind and then becomes a Harvey Girl herself.

The Sandrock powers that be have no interest in seeing the town civilized.  In addition, music hall headliner Em (Angela Lansbury) is mighty jealous over any rival for the attentions of her beloved Ned.  Efforts to frighten the girls away are followed by more serious threats. But the girls are up to the the challenge.  With Marjorie Main as a cook, Preston Foster as a baddie, Cyd Charisse as a Harvey Girl and Ray Bolger as the town’s new blacksmith.

This is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours but the songs, other than the Oscar winner, and laughs are not such as to make it one of the top musicals.  The DVD I rented had a very interesting commentary by director George Sidney.  The story spent many years in pre-production as a straight Western intended for Clark Gable.

Harry Warren and John Mercer won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe”.  The Harvey Girls was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Trailer