Date with Judy, A

Despite the film's banality being its primary drawback, there are some curiosities about it that nag as well. The first is that while Judy complains about her friend Carole having a butler and a maid and her own family having no such servants, Judy's family can afford a full-time cook and housekeeper. Worse, the cook-housekeeper is a black woman named, of all things, Nightingale (Lillian Yarbo), and she sings "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" as she goes about her chores. I thought at first the filmmakers might have intended this as a put-on, but apparently they meant Nightingale's character in earnest, a racial stereotype that modern filmgoers would hardly tolerate.

Then, too, there is the matter of ages in the film. Wallace Beery as the father of a teenager looks much too old for the part. In the story we learn that he married his wife when she was seventeen, and that that was twenty years earlier. So, presumably, the wife is thirty-seven. But Beery was in his mid sixties when he did the picture, and he always looked much older than his years. So for all intents and purposes, he appears to be about thirty or thirty-five years older than his wife and an unlikely candidate for a typical sitcom dad. On the other hand, Powell, who says she is sixteen in the film, was actually closer to twenty at the time. Taylor was in real life the right age for her character, sixteen, but, ironically, she looked at least twenty-five. Stack, though, is the most miscast of all. He was almost thirty when he did the part, and, frankly, he looks ridiculous romancing a pair of sixteen-year-olds.

So, that's it then. "A Date with Judy" comes off today as an old-fashioned, largely inoffensive, and mostly empty-headed musical comedy, notable for its stars and its music and little else. It's the sort of movie that "Pleasantville" (New Line) did so good a job parodying a few years back, which, now that I think of it, makes a far better viewing choice all the way around.

Video:
As usual, Warners started with what was undoubtedly a good vintage print and then cleaned it up considerably. The result looks pleasing, given the film's age. The image is very clean, with no visible age marks, scratches, lines, or flecks. There is a very faint, almost imperceptible pulsing of the Technicolor, but it's nothing to fret over. There is also a minor visible grain that imparts a slightly rough look to the picture, but it, too, is hardly worth mentioning. Colors look radiant, sometimes sparkling in their oddly pastel hues; and definition is reasonably sharp for an older film in standard definition.

Audio:
The soundtrack reproduction is a fairly ordinary Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural. It's good in its own unassuming way, with an exceptionally clear and natural midrange, if not much else. There is no bass to speak of, a soft treble, no width or breadth, and little dynamic range. So, what did you expect?

Extras:
Warner Bros. are good about providing extra materials even on some of their less-stellar releases. For "A Date with Judy" they give us a ten-minute vintage musical short, "Martin Block's Musical Merry-Go-Round #3," with singer Buddy Clark and Ray Noble and his orchestra; a classic Tom & Jerry Technicolor cartoon from 1948, "Professor Tom"; and a theatrical trailer. Things wind down with twenty-eight scene selections but no chapter insert, English as the only spoken language, French subtitles, and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
"A Date with Judy" is neither a good nor a bad movie, simply a bland one of a type that Hollywood and television once churned out by the score. Except for the stereotypes and vapid clichés, there is little about the movie that will seriously put off most adults. It's just that a few good tunes are not enough to turn this musical comedy into anything more than what it is: lightweight escapist fluff from a bygone era, depicting a version of America that never existed outside the mind of a Hollywood censor. Nonetheless, even mediocrity can sometimes be fun, and the youngest members of a family might find a modicum of enjoyment here. Or you could just use the fast-forward button to move through the musical numbers, which contribute little to the story line but remain entertaining in and of themselves.

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