Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

HotToastyRag "The clouds are singing for me and my gal. . ."The title song is pretty much the only memorable part of this movie, sung by Judy Garland and a newcomer to Hollywood, Gene Kelly. He was a Broadway star and made a smash in his film debut. To see all his collaborations with pint-sized Judy, rent The Pirate and Summer Stock for a song-and-dance-filled weekend!The plot of For Me and My Gal is actually very interesting, but since it didn't exactly send the right message in 1942, that's not the part of the movie most people remember. Judy and Gene are a married couple with dreams of stardom, but just when they're about to make it, Gene gets drafted for WWI. While Judy's brother, the fantastic dancer George Murphy who no doubt joined Gene Nelson in the "I'm jealous of Gene Kelly" fan club, fights in the war gladly, Gene doesn't want to give up his career. In a very controversial decision, he purposely injures his hand to avoid the battlefield. If you like WWI or WWII dramas in black-and-white, with some songs and dances thrown in for morale, you won't go wrong with For Me and My Gal. It's romantic, patriotic, and it makes you think about how far you'd go to realize your dreams. Plus it's got Gene Kelly in it.

richspenc "Me and my gal" is another amazing wonderful Judy Garland film, just like "Strike up the band", " Girl crazy", "Little Nellie Kellie", "Babes on Broadway", " Meet me in St. Louis", " Easter parade", and "In the good ol summertime". Judy was wonderful in all of them. In " Me and my gal", Judy truly is a beautiful wonderful angel, in her acting and her singing. She plays a vaudeville actress who meets a partner, Gene Kelly and they both want to get their big break. They practice song and dance routines together. A couple of good numbers they did together before making the palace included "Ball and the jack". Judy also does a great number, " Oh, you beautiful doll" with George Murphy before she pairs up with Gene. There's also an interesting Popeye style number one of Gene's friends does. Gene keeps trying to get his agent to book them into The Palace, NY. Gene and Judy also start falling in love and talk about getting married, as soon as they've had their first booking at The Palace. When they finally get their booking, something unexpected happens, and Gene decides to make a very rash move which I won't spoil by saying here. He also makes a very redeeming move near the end to really win Judy's heart. Also, Judy's brother gets drafted and we then get a passionate tear jerking moment from Judy while "Till we meet again" is being sung by Marta Eggerth. Judy gave me more wonderful tearjerking moments at the very end when she sang "Me and my gal" again with Gene, this time while they were really falling in love, and earlier in the film when they first realized they were falling for each other. These are the moments that help make this film so special. "Me and my gal" is sung earlier in the film too between Gene and Judy in the soda shop, wonderful there too. Judy sings several other great songs when she is singing to the American WW1 soldiers such as "After you've gone", "Smile, smile, smile", and "How you gonna keep'em down on the farm". I love this film. I love Judy Garland. There's also a cute quirky little moment at Marta's dinner and dancing place where George says to Judy and Gene (right after finding out they didn't make the Palace yet) raising his wine glass and says " here's to..uh..to...uh..", and Judy says "here's to" sadly but cutely. So amusing the way it was done. Wow, I loved this film. Marta is also fabulous and she also sings great. Gene is great too. Judy is an angel. All wonderful gold from Hollywood's golden age.

edwagreen Terrific plot underscores this great 1942 musical starring Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and George Murphy. While Murphy is relegated to a totally supporting role in this film, it was more than worth it as he holds his own.The musical numbers including the title song are marvelously staged. The tempo picks up as classic World War 1 songs are sung by Miss Garland and Mr. Kelly.You would never think that a Garland-Kelly musical with the two falling in love and fighting off temptation to abandon each other so as to advance in their careers would fall upon such tragedy here. Who would ever expect that the plot would finally revolve about Kelly's way to avoid selective service so that he could play at his beloved Palace Theater, only to incur the wrath of Garland whose brother is killed in the war.This was definitely the best of the 3 films that Garland and Kelly made together. The others were "The Pirate" (1948) and Garland's last film for MGM-"Summerstock," in 1951Note that this film came only after 3 years of Judy's "The Wizard of Oz," and yet she shows a phenomenal maturity here thus breaking out of her teenage role tradition. It was all uphill for Judy after this one.Who sang for Martha Eggert in the film? Whoever it was did a fantastic job.This heartwarming piece is a piece of Americana at its best.

bkoganbing Very few people have as auspicious debut in film as Gene Kelly did in For Me And My Gal. After a big success on Broadway in Pal Joey, Judy Garland pushed for him to be signed to an MGM contract and he was given to her as one of her leading men in this film. Kelly proved to be such a success in film that he next went back to Broadway in 1957 as a director of Flower Drum Song. But even Judy or anyone else could not have predicted that Kelly would be the major creative dancing icon he became, the only real rival that Fred Astaire ever had in film. George Murphy who was Kelly's rival for Judy Garland in the film was a good song and dance man, but never created on the screen the way Kelly did.In fact Murphy in his memoirs says that in the original ending he was supposed to wind up with Judy Garland instead of Kelly, that it was changed midpoint during shooting. Of course he didn't like that idea, but looking at the film, it so much works out for the better.Still Judy is the star and she and the rest of the cast get to sing a whole bunch of songs from the teen years of the last century, some numbers identified with the World War I years. She plays a young aspiring Vaudevillian in an act with Murphy, Lucille Norman, and Ben Blue. Kelly is also an aspiring Vaudevillian who wants to rise in the profession, but he will do just about anything to insure that happens and even love for Judy can't quite put a curb on his ruthlessness.In 1942 there will people in the audience who remembered Vaudeville and could reference easily what playing in the Palace Theatre in New York meant. For today's audience it would be the equivalent of a spot on David Letterman or the Tonight Show.Busby Berkeley directed For Me And My Gal and while he did it with a sure hand, the really spectacular numbers he was noted for are strangely absent from this film. The musical scoring by Roger Edens and Georgie Stoll earned the film an Academy Award nomination in that category.Gene Kelly not only made a film debut, but also a debut on record. He and Judy cut a 78 with the title song and a flipside duet of When You Wore A Tulip. Judy was contracted with Decca Records at the time and both sides later came out on albums. The original 78 would be quite a collector's item today.For Me And My Gal is a nice period type musical, the kind that 20th Century Fox was more known for, but for which MGM did a fine job. The whole cast and crew took long bows for this one. In Vaudeville they would have gotten a whole lot of curtain calls.