They don't make films like "A date with Judy' anymore. Seeing it 67 years after it appeared on the screen, it is very much something out of an America that doesn't exist anymore in the way it was then depicted. Saying this, doesn't mean that the conceit of puppy love or depiction of small town America has been scrubbed from Hollywood's style book; far from it, the theme reappears in cut to fit more contemporary patterns. Middle class Santa Barbara is thinning out in today's America, whilst the town's wealthy class is growing fat on the favors of government since the 1980s. 'A date with Judy', shot in Technicolor, is a recycled radio show brought to the 'silver screen'. It is also reprocessed teen age 'love' that one found in the early 40s in the films of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musicales. 'Judy' served two purposes: one, the feature 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor on the waxing phase of smoldering sexuality; two, as a vehicle to highlight the crystalline soprano voice of 17 year old Jane Powell. The script creaks but it has its bright moments when Carmen Miranda as a Rhumba teacher and singer of her fiancé Xavier Cugat's orchestra appears in the story. And, 'Judy' springs to life with her singing of 'Quanta la gusta', a hit of 1948. "our Gang's' Scotty Beckett, the almost 30 Robert Stack, Wallace Berry, George Cleveland, Selena Royale, Leon Ames dutiful fill the cast of uninspiring parents and grand parents, yet Beckett with his breaking voice and simple singing adds a comic note. And with mention in the credits is the black Lillian Yarbo the maid to fit the stereotype of African Americans of the time, and who is forever sweating in the the kitchen or answering the door or the telephone, and endlessly singing 'Sing low sweet chariot'. And Stack is the date for Judy but instead falls for Taylor. Although in Technicolor, one has to wonder if the state of the film hasn't deteriorated over time, for at moments when the camera takes close up of Talyor's vulpine shaped face, it looks as though she has a 5 o'clock shadow.
Review of A Date with Judy
