I don't know about anyone else, but I think Judy's appearance was at it's peak in this film. It has to be one of my all time favorites! I especially love the number "Could You Use Me?" Judy's part was the best..."There's a chap I know in Mexico who's as strong as he can be..." I especially love it when she goes "excuse me!" Her face is priceless! My all time favorite!
shareI like that part as well.
"Men like him should be shot down like dogs! Shot down like dogs! Shot down like dogs!"
Judy looked absolutely gorgeous in this film. Very sexy.
She definitely looked better with just a little more weight on her. She looked awful in later years, probably from trying to starve herself and all the drugs she took to lose weight.
I love Jesus, but I drink a little.
You're all right.It was very noticeable in this film that Judy looked absolutely radiant.Maybe it was the notion that she was playing a girl that all the boys liked.She's so perfect in Embraceable You,singing,dancing,and coquettishly twirling a lock of an admiring student's hair.She was in top form.
shareShe looks great in this and also in Presenting Lilly Mars--so pretty in both. Just a couple of years later, however, as in The Pirate, she looked too thin and the makeup was harsh. She got it in her head that she wanted to look more "sophisticated" so she went for harsher makeup and artificial eye brows. It was like Doris Day trying to look like Marlene Dietrich. Too bad Judy couldn't just embrace her wholesome girl-next-door looks, but she envied the other M-G-M girls like Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, and didn't think she measured up!
shareShe does look pretty. Before this, she was a slightly plump type, including face. Hate to be cynical, but the sleek look was probably due to (as is well-known) the studio's keeping her all pilled-up, with makeup masking the telltale look of starvation.
shareOh, my God--those eyebrows on Judy! It began with "Meet Me in St. Louis." Years later, during her concert period in the early/mid 1950's they were all but flying off her face.
They got back to normal by the time of Carnegie Hall, etc.
She's also adorable in "Babes on Broadway" and "For Me and My Gal." In fact, she was never unattractive. Just young and bit plump at times. MGM didn't do her any favors with some of those outfits in her early films.
I think she was at her most beautiful in "For Me and My Gal." She looked great here, but her hair was lighter and I liked it slightly darker because it made her look more delicate and ethereal--flawless. Her look here was probably a little more realistic. There were lots of women with wide hips cast in this movie (and everyone seemed to be on the short side!--so I wonder if the diet nazis let up on Judy a little during this movie? She looks darling in the cowgirl miniskirt at the end!
shareI must agree she looks fabulous in this film. I never thought she was that cute before, just a great singer.
shareShe does indeed look "cute" in GIRL CRAZY, but the only movie in which she looks truly beautiful is PRESENTING LILY MARS (ironically, probably her worst movie). Interesting that both movies were made in the same year (1943) and, with the exception of the forthcoming THE CLOCK (1945), were Judy's last movies in black-and-white. Perhaps Technicolor photography didn't flatter her, but then she is also quite thin in her color films, except for her final movie for MGM, SUMMER STOCK, where she is too plump (although pleasingly slimmed down for the "Get Happy" finale, which was shot 3 months after principal photography was completed). Sadly, she looks almost skeletal, certainly anorexic in the pitiful footage that remains from the aborted ANNIE GET YOUR GUN.
One thing that has always perplexed me is why didn't Mickey Rooney suffer from the same addictions that plagued his co-star. From what I've read, both he and Judy had to do personal live performances to accompany the openings of their movies in major cities, and both were given the same pills to put them to sleep while their movies were unspooling, and then given "pep" pills to wake them up and energize them for their 4-5 live performances per day. Rooney seemed to survive this inhuman ordeal but not Judy. Does anyone know why? How ironic that Mickey lived twice as long as Ms. Garland.
A close friend of mine was one of the assistant directors on VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Upon his first encounter with Ms. Garland (she kept him waiting for 2 hours at her home until she finally wobbled down the stars, so emaciated and shaking so badly that Sid Luft had to hold her hand to make it steady as he handed her a glass of vodka), my friend knew there was no way she was going to be able to do the movie. Without meaning to be cruel, he said she looked "like Peter Lorre in drag". And while her death was attributed to an "accidental" overdose of drugs, Debbie Reynolds appeared on Joy Behar's hour-long cable show several years ago and, having sat on the airplane next to Judy as the two ladies flew to London, Ms. Reynolds claimed that her death was no accident but a suicide.
So sad all the way around.
Judy definitely looked amazingly beautiful in Girl crazy especially while singing Embracable you. Its sad that the MGM studios forced her to get so much skinnier after that. She was still beautiful in Meet me in St. Louis and The clock. But I don't think it had anything to do with color cause she was beautiful in Meet me in St. Louis and that was in color. Actually in In the good old summertime in 1949, she put a little more weight on again and was beautiful.
I've read before how MGM only let Judy and the other celebs sleep only 4 hours a night and basically forced them to work every other hour of the day. And they were given sleeping pills right before they went to bed, then woke them up 4 hours later and gave them thier pep pills again. It's crazy. They should've let them sleep more like 6-7 hours, there still would've been 14 hours (which is still too much, 12 would've been even more reasonable) for them to work. I mean I know that there needed to be alot of hours working to get each film scene just right. What they could've done in each day's 24 hrs: 7 hrs sleep, 14 hrs work, 3 hrs left broken up throughout the day for like getting ready in morning, eating each meal of the day, a couple other short breaks, showers, and getting ready for bed. That would've been better than how they did it, and people wondered why Judy and other celebs got so run down over time.