Mickey Rooney Week: Girl Crazy

Welcome back kiddies to Day 4 of Mickey Rooney Week.  As you already know. Mr. Rooney could do physical comedy, deep seeded drama and had a rather impressive pace of dialogue but, did you know he could sing and dance too?  NOoOoOOo???   Well, shame on the load of you.  Ahem, this particular flick is a musical that showcases both Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland's comedy, song and dance numbers featured by none other than Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.  This is Girl Crazy.

HelloooOoOoO Debutante!!

Ginger Gray: Were you always out of your spoiler?
Danny Churchill, Jr. : No, no just lately.





Our story begins with disappointed father Danny Churchill, Sr. (Henry O' Neill of The Life of Emile Zola, Jezebel, Santa Fe Train and Anchors Aweigh) reading the latest headlines about his scandalous playboy son Danny Churchill, Jr. (Mickey Rooney of Mickey's Big Broadcast, The Big Chance, Broadway to Hollywood, Beloved, I Like It That Way, Hide-Out and Reckless) gadding it up on Broadway and how it makes him look.  With the lad's head filled with fun and girls, Senior decides to ship Danny off to a college away from the hustle and bustle distractions of New York and to a remote mining town in the desert called Cody. This way there are no girls to distract him and he can knuckle down on his studies.  Careful Dad, he could be a liberal arts major just to spite you.

Silly hobo!  Never get in front of Judy's ride!

His bus drops him out in the desert and Danny is forced to walk no less than 8 miles to his impeding doom and/or college.  He bumps into a dish with car trouble by the name of Ginger (Judy Garland of Everybody Sing, The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Arms, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, Meet Me in St. Louis and A Star is Born) who is aware of Danny's reputation via newspaper and brushes him off after he tends to her engine.  Danny thoroughly exhausted makes his way to the dorm and meets his roommate Bud (Gil Stratton of Dangerous Years, Tuscon, Hot Rod, Army Bound, Waldo, Stalag 17 and Dismembered) who explains the rigorous scholastic Danny is to endure.

After some horseback riding all day to a wilderness camp, Danny is probably cursing God, his father and all that is mouth breathers when he runs into a former NYC hack driver Rags (Rags Ragland of Born to Sing, Sunday Punch, Whistling in Dixie, 3 Men in White and Meet the People) who tries to assist our poor tenderfoot East Coaster.

Tempted to leave, Danny preps to go home when he realizes that Ginger is the girl to end all girls.  The one if you will and decides he will buckle down, pass his classes and woo this dame with all his might can muster.   Ginger seemingly impressed will see if Danny can be true to his boasts and gives him the benefit of the doubt.

I had just a bit of trivia about the flick now.  Being this is an MGM musical, composer  George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess) wrote I Got Rhythm for the play Crazy For You which has had covers by Ethel Waters, Charlie Parker's saxophone and even Ella Fitzgerald's pipes has made its way into cinema and the small screen for decades to come.
The play Girl Crazy was performed by Ginger Rogers and Allen Kearns and included Ethel Merman singing "I Got Rhythm" as her very first Broadway production.

Little lady, my dog seems to have wandered to that cheap hotel across the way. Accompany me?