The story for this film is that Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney) and Patsy Barton (Judy Garland) are aspiring entertainers and the children of vaudeville performers. Vaudeville has lost its popularity do to movies! Mickey and Patsy's parents are are trying bringback Vaudeville but they are failing . Now Mickey and Patsy now decide to produce their own show in a bid to reach their dreams of stage stardom and save their homes and not end up in a work camp!.I am not sure if this the first movie that has the plot of "Let's Save the ______" by putting on a show. Now the best musical number is at the begging of the film and its the "Good Morning" number. What is great about this number is that is just "Judy" and "Mickey". No fireworks or special effects. ITs two very talented people and a piano. Other numbers in this film range only from "Barely Tolerable" to "Awful". Worth watching once. Funny thing is that this film made more money (At The Time) than "The Wizard of Oz"

"Babes in Arms" is the first of four musicals MGM made for its two young musical talents, Mickey Rooney (as Mickey Moran) and Judy Garland (as Patsy Barton). And this one is very entertaining. The story is OK – the kids are protégés of parents who had been successes in vaudeville. They now live in a community on Long Island where many performers also have settled down. The rest of the story plot will be familiar to movie buffs. The story was developed so that we could see Rooney, Garland and several other good performers display their talents. The movie is adapted from a play by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. The "kids" shine in two Rogers- Hart numbers – "Babes in Arms" and "Where or When." Several other numbers are interspersed in the movie. The last two numbers are lengthy staged routines with singing, dancing, and dialog. Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed wrote "Good Morning," and Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg wrote "God's Country." In the latter two, Rooney shows some excellent footwork and does a couple of nice imitations. Garland also does a nice imitation of Eleanor Roosevelt.One strange thing in this move was the bus that Patsy takes to visit her mother in Schenectady, NY. I've ridden Greyhound and Trailways buses many years ago, but I've never seen a bus with sleeping berths. This is the first and only one I've ever seen in a movie or anywhere. And this berth doesn't even look cramped, like those in trains. I suspect this was just a concoction of MGM to give Garland a more comfy setting in which to film her song, "I've Cried for You."This early film of the series isn't up to the caliber of the later ones; but it's enjoyable just the same. Most have more comedy dialog. One cute and funny scene here is in the opening. Mickey asks Patsy, "Would you like my pin?" Patsy replies, "It's your music class pin." Mickey: "Well, what do you want me to say?" Patsy: "You know what I want you to say." Mickey: "Well, I won't." Patsy: "All right then, don't." Mickey: "Oh, Pat …. I do." Patsy: "You do what?" Mickey: "I do, what you want me to say and I won't. Very much."And, remembering that this was 1939, the last song in the tune, "God's Country," has some clever lines. "We've got no Duce, we've got no Führer; but we've got Garbo and Norma Shearer. Got no goose steps, but we got a Suzie Q step .. Here in God's country."

Wow, I just finished watching "Babes in Arms", and my head is spinning. We old movie fans are used to seeing ethnic humor and even the occasional bit of blackface in early Hollywood films; but what "Babes in Arms" gives us is outrageous by any definition: an entire cast of a "show within a show", numbering at least 50 to 75 people, including Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, every one in blackface, performing not just a minstrel skit, nor a single musical number, but an entire 20 minute full-blown minstrel show in spectacular MGM full-production mode. It goes on and on and on. Dialect jokes. Banjoes and songs about Alabammy. And finally, Judy Garland, having removed her blackface, comes out and performs an additional number ("I'm Just Wild About Harry") as an only slightly darkened black woman. Wow.On the other hand, is it really possible that the manic Mickey Rooney was only 19 when he made this? He really shows why he may be the single most talented American performer of the last century. He dances, he sings, he does drama, he does comedy, and he has incredible control over his every move and muscle. And he does unbelievable and hilarious impressions of Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. And Franklin Roosevelt.A few quick notes: June Priesser, who plays "Baby" Rosalie, was a terrible actress. But watch out for her stomach-churning contortionist back-rolls when she first comes out on a stage.The child actor who plays Mickey Rooney at age 5 dancing on a Vaudeville stage for a few moments early on really does look like Mickey Rooney! I think Judy Garland actually has some of the same lines in this movie as she does in "Wizard of Oz", done in this same year. Watch out for when Mickey Rooney feints early in the film; Garland reacts to this exactly, and I mean exactly, as she does in Oz when the Lion feints. Eerie! When Judy Garland, as Eleanor Roosevelt, sings "My day, my day", she is referring to an actual long-running newspaper column written by E.R. from 1936 to 1962.Finally, the final song and dance number is the most mind-numbing, over-the-top tribute to America, dancing, how we are not Nazis, American Indians, Asian Indians, dancing, the Roosevelts, and dancing, that I have ever seen. Yes, it was early WWII, but still, you wonder if anyone even in 1939 thought this was a little too much? Recommended for its high energy, its Rooney and Garland, its more Rooney, its offensiveness, and its too much of everything. It is history, and should be watched by all.

Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney) and Patsy Barton (Judy Garland) are teenage sweethearts and children of longtime vaudeville families. But vaudeville has suffered since the introduction of talking pictures, and their parents are out of work. When Judge John Black (Guy Kibbee) threatens to send the children of the actors off to a work farm, Mickey and Patsy lead the vaudeville kids in a rebellion. Using that old reliable stand-by -- "Hey, let's put on a show!" -- the vaudeville kids decide to prove that they are capable of supporting themselves. They develop a show that they hope to take to Broadway.As usual for screen musicals of this time, the Broadway-to-Hollywood transition does not go well. The Broadway version of "Babes In Arms" was a fairly-successful and watchable musical. But when MGM bought the rights to it, they threw out the script and most of the songs and started all over again. They tossed out classic songs like "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "Johnny One-Note," in favor of mediocre songs like "Good Morning" and "God's Country." Rooney gives a decent performance, and Garland is well on her way to becoming America's Sweetheart. But this movie has NOT held up well over time. There is a nerve-grating "Minstrel Show" number at the end, with Rooney and Garland in blackface. Also, there is a disturbing scene where the vaudeville kids light a bonfire in the middle of town and use it to burn books of authority. (Didn't anybody in Hollywood watch the newsreels at this time, and see what was going on in Berlin?) But even more so than that, the plot is just a clothesline to string together musical numbers. Compared to today's musicals, where you have interesting things going on in between the musical numbers, the Rooney-Garland romance story in "Babes in Arms" is just marking time between songs.The movie is worth watching to see Garland in the prime of her teen sweetheart years, and possibly to check out the dance numbers. But overall, this musical is best forgotten.