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.

Charles Herold (cherold) For Me and My Gal is a rather odd bird. Set during World War I, The film begins by positioning itself as a tribute to the days of vaudeville, with sweet singer Judy Garland meeting obnoxious dancer Gene Kelly on tour. The two predictably team up after doing an impromptu version of For Me and My Gal that is the best thing in the movie.Then the movie wanders into soap opera before pulling the various war- themed threads together into a typical WWII rah-rah boost for contributing to the war effort.The story is a bit of a mess. I suspect the U.S. entry into WWII happened after the film was greenlighted and parts of it were grafted on as part of the war morale-boosting that was an inevitable part of most early 40s movies. There is a lack of cohesion, most notably with George Murphy's character, who feels like the vestigial tail of the original script. The movie also feels a little self-serving in its emphasis on the importance of entertainment for the troops. I feel this movie would have been done better if it's story had been allowed to play out without worries about patriotic fervor.Kelly is likable in his film debut, but his character is unsympathetic, and apparently the studio had to do a lot of reshooting before audiences could leave the theater not hating him. Garland is charming as she leaves her juvenile roles behind, although I can never be totally happy with any Garland movie that doesn't include at least one ballad. They have good chemistry, but it is better featured in The Pirate, which they made later on.The reason to watch a movie like this is for the musical numbers, but while these are good, there isn't much that is memorable (surprisingly director Busby Berkeley didn't do any of his trademark synchronized- chorus-girl numbers). There are also big chunks of the movie where the musical numbers disappear in favor of the story, which just highlights its weaknesses.Overall this isn't a horrible movie, but it's not one I'd particularly recommend.

mark.waltz With only three film appearances together, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland became a team with enough dynamite to blow memories of Judy and Mickey out of the barn. Fresh from Broadway, Gene never looked back as he took Hollywood by storm, and within a few years, was rivaling another dancer named Astaire who came back from a brief retirement to give Mr. Kelly, if I may, a run for his money. Here, Gene and Judy get a war story, timely for the time, even if the war they were fighting was the first World War, not the then current second one. They are members of separate vaudeville acts who come together as one, he replacing her old partner George Murphy (not a bad hoofer himself), and as fast as you can scramble to find a big yellow tulip, they are in love. But when their chance to hit the big time through the Palace in New York comes along, Gene is drafted, and his old selfish nature erupts which makes him not only unpatriotic but his own worst enemy.Like "This is the Army!", this takes the audience out to view the entertainers on the front, sometimes in dangerous areas of combat, and after realizing the mistake he made, Kelly is desperate not only to fight but to make his girl proud and win her back. But will he find her on the French trenches? Can Judy belt? Can Gene tap? Will Leo roar? Along the way, there's Judy and Gene "Ballin' the Jack", turnin' out the title song and briefly singing the rousing "When You Wore a Tulip" which had a hit recording where the two addressed each other by their real names. "I wore a big red rose!", to which Judy replies "A big fat rose", a memorable duet truncated for the movie much to this Judy fan's disappointment. Judy also gives a fantastic rendition of "After You've Gone", one of the best torch numbers of her career, showing all the emotion she would later empower with "A Star is Born". Gene's selfish character may have made certain audience members "boo" during the war, and it does seem as if he'll never turn over a new leaf or wake up and smell the chock full o' nuts. But MGM had "patriotism" on its mind in 1942, and there is no way it could let a leading man (especially a new one they intended to make a big star) remain "yeller". That old task masker Busby Berkley is once again at the helm of a Judy picture, and if he was taxing her as dramatized in her many biographies, it never shows. The chemistry between Judy and Gene is top dog and any indication of her teenage "Nobody's Baby" glamourless girl is totally gone. She's a star all the way from here, and Gene would rejoin her for two more musical ventures of varying themes where the memory of their first venture proved to be much more than a fluke.

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.