Strike Up the Band (1940) is a rollicking pastiche of M-G-M Americana, which is probably a genre, but at the very least, a profitable theme for the studio. Two of its prize properties, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, are back for their fourth paring, and once again, prove they can do no wrong. The question is whether the studio wanted to make a teens in the Depression coming-of-age movie, a barn musical, a patriotic endorsement of our nation in that stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la period between the start of World War II in September 1939 and our eventual entry in December 1941—or just a nostalgic, warm, family comedy? With nothing to lose, the studio decided to make it all of the above.
As for the family in family comedy, the few parents we see include Mickey’s widowed mother, whom he insists he will make “a queen” and June Preisser’s rich parents, who will bankroll Mickey’s ultimate success, which is very convenient. Most of Mickey and Judy’s high school gang talk of parental rules but seem to run their own lives pretty well, to the point that the most important adults in their sphere are the school principal, played by Francis Pierlot, a longtime vaudevillian and stage actor whose film career in his senior years must have surprised and gratified him; and the real-life big band leader Paul Whiteman.
Mr. Whiteman’s orchestra played an important role in the 1920s when the well-mannered and sophisticated jazz of the era evolved into swing music in the early 1930s (Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee were among those who had their start with him). By the time this movie was made, one could say that, though he had a noted place in the history of early twentieth-century American music, his best years were behind him. American kids going to the grand party for rich June Pressier’s 18th birthday (How could they afford those rented tuxedos?) would have been thrilled to be listening and dancing to the famous Paul Whiteman’s orchestra; however, they probably had more Dorsey, Miller, and Kyser records at home and were probably wondering when the “boogie-woogie” would start.
Mickey and his pals play in the school band, which is dull and uninspiring to them, but the scene gives us an oh-so-brief comic glance at the disapproving, spinsterish music teacher played by Virginia Sale, who had a long career playing much older character parts. She was the sister of vaudevillian comic Chic Sale. She also wrote and played in a one-woman show called American Sketches, with which she toured from the 1930s through the 1950s, including a stint over in Europe to perform for the troops during World War II.
Mikey Rooney, born in a trunk and growing up on a soundstage, was by now a veteran movie star, not just a movie actor, and could do this role in his sleep. It does, however, give him a chance to exhibit yet another talent for us—he was a very good drummer, and his solo pieces in this movie are terrific.
Mikey’s dilemma in the movie is that he wants to be a big band leader but his sainted mother wants him to be a doctor. Money is tight (or as Mikey says, “When’s bank night?”), so we don’t know how she thinks this is going to happen, but Mikey dreads disappointing her. Still, on the sly, and with a polite, clean-scrubbed rebellious streak, he organizes his buddies on the all-male school band into a dance orchestra. They want to perform at parties and dances and raise money to go to Chicago to audition for Paul Whiteman and get rich and famous.
Every big band needs a girl singer, and this is where Judy Garland comes in. Judy is, as always, wonderful, multi-talented, tears your heart out with a look and a lyric, and seems to grow in her powers with each movie she makes at this period.
We are treated to Gershwin tunes and different settings, from the imaginative but weird fantasy where a bowl of fruit becomes an orchestra via stop-motion animation, to a spirited conga number in the high school gym, to a very long and overly produced finale that gives us—either as an afterthought or perhaps a cherry on top—the image of martial bands, Mikey in a white naval uniform, and a salute to the flag. Clearly, the studio wanted to make sure, even in the last moments of the film, that all bases were covered.
Mikey’s solution to his problem dovetails with Judy’s problem—which is the effervescent June Preisser, the (as we mentioned in this previous post) “eye-rolling junior vamp” with the rolling acrobatic moves that always astound but that never seem to fit in with a musical number. June’s making eyes at Mikey makes Judy miserable. Judy pines after Mikey, but the fool never seems to notice.
Pining after Judy is the really funny and quite endearing Larry Nunn as Willie, a boy who is a freshman to their senior grade. Larry Nunn had a brief movie career—this film was probably his best work—and died tragically at only 49. Young Willie provides the dramatic crisis in the film when he is injured and requires an operation. The gang turns over their earnings to him and, as we see in the melodrama play they perform as a fundraiser, virtue is its own reward.
A word about the melodrama, a Gay Nineties spoof called “Nell of New Rochelle.” I think this is my favorite part of the whole movie, partly because of the silliness, and partly as a tribute to a long-ago form of entertainment. It’s part of our American theatrical heritage. When this movie was made, the Gay Nineties was only fifty years ago. I say “only” because I have now reached the senior citizen stage of my life and to me, the 1990s was last Thursday, and the 1970s was the week before that.
The spoof also gives William Tracy, one of Mickey’s pals, a spotlight role as the villain of the piece. His overly made-up and sneering, sinister overtures to virginal Judy is a stark contrast to his somewhat goofy teen personality, always worried about whether or not he is on the outs with his girlfriend, Annie, played by Margaret Early. Young Mr. Tracy’s most prominent role was likely the jokester junior shop clerk in The Shop Around the Corner, made the same year of 1940 (see this previous post.)
The silliness of this “mellerdramer” also served as an inspiration to me when, a couple decades ago, I directed a similar kind of show for my local community theater called “The Face on the Bar-Room Floor,” and we incorporated many of the gags in this spoof: the counting of the chimes of the town clock always being wrong, using many of the same songs: “She Is More to be Pitied Than Censured,” “After the Ball, “ “Father, Dear Father,” etc., and when the unfortunate child, like Willie in the movie, died and suddenly bore a white gown and cardboard angel wings, instead of “flying” him on a wire, we brought out two gum-chewing, bored-looking stagehands to hoist him on their shoulders and parade him off to “heaven.” The audience loved it. That community theatre show remains a warm and wonderful memory that returns to me when I see this spoof in Strike Up the Band.
A few other favorite moments:
When June Pressier, new student, confidently slinks into the classroom, causing Margaret Early to whisper to Judy Garland, “She’s touched it up,” referring to June’s being a dyed blonde—Judy, half admiring and half dreading a competitor murmurs simply, “Yeah.” It’s a quiet moment, and in moments like these and when she is singing the comic but plaintive, “I ain’t got nobody and nobody’s got me,” in the library is when Judy is at her most powerful, commanding the screen far more than in the frenetic moments when—one suspects at the insistence of Busby Berkeley—her forceful eye-popping enthusiasm is nothing more than a theatrical ploy. It does not draw us in like the real acting does.
We might also note in the library scene a brief Charles
Smith sighting as the boy who’s looking for a book on the fall of the Roman
Empire. We also see Charles in the
above-mentioned The Shop on the Corner.
I also like Willie’s pathetic and funny marriage proposal to
Judy just before his mother calls to tell him it’s his bedtime, and the
long-suffering Willie’s remark to Judy, when he sees that Mikey has snubbed her
again, “Just give me the word, Mary, and I’ll slug him,” and “Some birds just
got to be shot twice before they stop flying.”
At some point between the high school dance and the big gig in Chicago, the kids have graduated from high school, but we never see the ceremony and it seems of secondary importance to their quest for fame and fortune. It’s a world of homespun advice from Mom, played by Ann Shoemaker who offers in her society lady diction, “The top of the ladder is very appealing, and for my sake, be careful how you climb that ladder, because that’s very important, too.”
Paul Whiteman offers his own advice, or something about
dying and drumming, “When we get to the last eight bars of the big tune—the
last thing to stop is our rhythm.”
It’s a world of neckties and sweater vests, and it’s a nice
place to visit, and I wouldn’t mind living there, too.
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