{"id":20086,"date":"2011-10-12T16:21:52","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T23:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=20086"},"modified":"2023-09-16T10:12:45","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T17:12:45","slug":"harvey-girls-the-1946","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=20086","title":{"rendered":"Harvey Girls, The (1946)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;A Harvey Girl is more than a waitress; whereever a Harvey House exists, civilization is not far behind.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Poster-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-20087\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Poster-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Poster-85x128.jpg 85w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Poster.jpg 502w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA young midwestern woman (Judy Garland) travels to the Southwest to marry a rancher (Chill Wills) she&#8217;s never met; but when she learns he&#8217;s a hick, she decides to become a &#8220;Harvey Girl&#8221; waitress instead, and finds herself falling for the owner (John Hodiak) of a rival saloon.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Angela Lansbury Films<\/li>\n<li>George Sidney Films<\/li>\n<li>Historical Drama<\/li>\n<li>Judy Garland Films<\/li>\n<li>Musicals<\/li>\n<li>Preston Foster Films<\/li>\n<li>Ranchers<\/li>\n<li>Westerns<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nI was disappointed to revisit this MGM musical western (inspired by the Broadway success of <em>Oklahoma!<\/em>), which features a memorably catchy Oscar-winning tune &#8212; &#8220;On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe&#8221; &#8212; but fails to really deliver on most other counts. The remainder of the Harry Warren\/Johnny Mercer score is largely forgettable (though I did enjoy Virginia O&#8217;Brien&#8217;s droll delivery of &#8220;The Wild, Wild West&#8221;), and the story&#8217;s dramatic tension hinges upon an overly simplistic division between two types of erstwhile &#8220;working girls&#8221; (saloon performers &#8212; a.k.a prostitutes, though naturally they&#8217;re not named as such here &#8212; and waitresses). Other than through one musical montage (&#8220;The Train Must Be Fed&#8221;), we don&#8217;t learn nearly enough about what life was really like for Harvey Girls, other than to believe they were consistently badgered by nefarious townsfolk threatened by their &#8220;civilizing&#8221; presence. Ray Bolger is on hand to offer a bit of comedic dancing relief, but his presence seems calculated simply to remind audiences of his former pairing with Garland in <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=3361\"><em>The Wizard of Oz<\/em> (1939)<\/a>. Garland is as charming and sassy as ever (she has one especially good scene when she goes on a rampage to collect some stolen steaks); however, this ultimately remains one of her lesser roles for MGM. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Judy Garland as Susan<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Garland.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Garland.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20090\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Garland.png 512w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Garland-128x96.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Garland-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Virginia O&#8217;Brien singing &#8220;The Wild, Wild West&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-OBrien.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-OBrien.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20091\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-OBrien.png 512w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-OBrien-128x96.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-OBrien-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>The &#8220;Atchison-Topeka&#8221; musical sequence<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Atchison-Topeka.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Atchison-Topeka.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Atchison-Topeka.png 512w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Atchison-Topeka-128x96.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Harvey-Girls-Atchison-Topeka-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo; this one is only must-see for Garland fans. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0038589\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=4722&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1946\/01\/25\/archives\/the-screen-in-review-the-harvey-girls-opens-at-capitolmusical-stars.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/dvdsavant\/s509harvey.html\">DVD Savant Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcm.com\/tcmdb\/title\/777\/the-harvey-girls#articles-reviews?articleId=24028\">TCM Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/VQ4VQybo9rg\">Tired Old Queen at the Movies Video Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A Harvey Girl is more than a waitress; whereever a Harvey House exists, civilization is not far behind.&#8221; Synopsis: A young midwestern woman (Judy Garland) travels to the Southwest to marry a rancher (Chill Wills) she&#8217;s never met; but when she learns he&#8217;s a hick, she decides to become a &#8220;Harvey Girl&#8221; waitress instead, and finds herself falling for the owner (John Hodiak) of a rival saloon. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Angela Lansbury Films George Sidney Films Historical Drama&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=20086\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20086"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91666,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20086\/revisions\/91666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}