This morning on TCM they showed The Harvey Girls. I watched just long enough for the tremendous ensemble number, “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (1946’s Oscar for “Best Original Song”), one of the best ensemble numbers in the movies. One shot. Real people. The only things we see like that on the screen today are animated cartoons.
There are a lot of notable things about it. How frail and drawn Judy Garland looked. How solicitous her old friend, Ray Bolger, was of her. And Angela Lansbury, looking absolutely gorgeous as a dancehall girl.
I wonder how many people who saw The Harvey Girls in first run would have bet that Angela Lansbury would still be an active presence in the movies more than 70 years later? She had three credits in 2018.
Never seen.
I enjoy watching 60 year old westerns, especially Gunsmoke. So many shows and movies have been set in the unsettled period right after the civil war. Plenty of armed and aimless men to form gangs or cause mayhem. This was an honor culture, by the way.
Interesting to imagine the time perspective of the actors and producers vis-a-vis ours.
The civil war was about as distant to them as WWII to us.