Babes in Arms

First of the Garland-Rooney musicals, clothing a tired plot (old vaudevillians can't cope with competition from the movies, but their putting-on-a-show youngsters emphatically can) with much charm, energy and, mercifully, no Busby Berkeley chorine patterns. Sadly, one of Rodgers and Hart's best scores was mostly shed on the way to the screen, possibly considered too sophisticated for high school junketings. But the replacement numbers, including some old minstrel show favourites, have an appropriately nostalgic quality. Babes in Arms was followed by Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941) and Girl Crazy (1943).