If anyone else had played the lead in this picture, it would have been long forgotten. This is Judy's show, all the way, and everything about it is designed to show off her immense talents.
She is at the top of her form here...looking lovely, singing gorgeously, dancing with aplomb, and handling both dramatic and comedic scenes better than anyone else could ever dream to. The biggest highlight of the film is the mammoth eight-minute production number ON THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND THE SANTA FE which ended up winning a Best Song Oscar. This sequence alone is worth the price of the DVD, and the Warner Home Video people give us an extra bonus by presenting the number separately in TRUE STEREO! Astounding!

The supplementary materials are vast and beautifully assembled. The commentary by recently-deceased director George Sidney was fortunately captured for this release, and his thoughts and reminiscences are entertaining and charming. There were four musical numbers intended for this picture which were cut before release. MARCH OF THE DOAGIES and its reprise and MY INTUITION are the three that were filmed, and they are included on this DVD, looking like they were filmed yesterday (actually they look TOO good to have been filmed in this day and age). The one unused song that was recorded but not filmed called HAYRIDE is among the more than 20 pre-recording sessions included on the DVD's "Sing Song Express". A captivating opportunity to be present on the Metro recording stages as they laid down these historic tracks. You can hear the starts and stops, the banter and laughter...It's almost like being there. The disc also includes a trailer.

Hats off to Warner and Turner for a splendid job well done, a VAST improvement from the once-impressive laserdisc release, which is now unwatchable in comparison to this DVD. Add to this the VERY reasonable price of this movie, and it can't be beat. Now the big question: "When will Warner give us MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, EASTER PARADE and the rest of the golden Garland catalog?" Let's hope it's soon. If this DVD is any indication of what those will be like, we are in for a treat.


Judy at her comedic best!   June 2, 2000
Tim Sullivan (Massachusetts, USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

"The Harvey Girls" is my favorite of the MGM musicals. It has everything: a superb star (Judy Garland), a great supporting cast (headed by a young Angela Lansbury, with Ray Bolger and Marjorie Main), fantastic songs (featuring the Academy Award winning "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"), and a funny plot. Susan Bradley (Garland) decides to marry the man she has been writing love letters to, and travels with the Harvey restaurant chain to a town in the Old West to meet him. When she gets there, she realizes the romantic letters were written by his friend, the owner of the town saloon (played by John Hodiak). Susan decides to join the Harvey girls in setting up the new restaurant. When the town leaders try to scare the Harvey girls away because they are taking business from the saloon, Susan must help keep the restaurant in order. Angela Lansbury shines as the villainous saloon girl, as do Marjorie Main as the Harvey House cook, and Ray Bolger as the local blacksmith.


The powers of wholesomeness   August 20, 2004
Jay Dickson (Portland, OR)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

One of the most lavish of 40s MGM musicals, THE HARVEY GIRLS really shows off Judy Garland's considerable comedy skills, which she rarely got much of a chance to work with, and also shows her off at her absolute most unearthly beauty. She's terrific here, and she gets a great haunting opening solo from the caboose of a train and a great entrance into town with the famous "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," one of the most excitingly staged numbers the Arthur Freed unit ever did (which is saying something). The rest of the film isn't up to Garland's level or the level of those two songs, although the hokey plot--about how the upright and starched Harvey Girls bring such an attractive wholesomeness to the Wild West that all the temptations of sin wilt before them--demonstrates pretty much the MGM moral ethos of the time. One added plus: a very young Angela Lansbury, as Garland's rival for John Hodiak (ugh), looking ravishing in multicolored lace teddies and oversized picture hats.


John Hodiak Appreciation Thread   May 23, 2005
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Not much written nowadays about John Hodiak, who plays Ned Trent in this 1946 George Sidney musical, but he was a wonderful presence in the Hollywood cinema of the 1940s, and all of his pictures are worth a look. He seems strangely modern, natural in his appeal, with some of the cocky good looks and charm of our own John Travolta. THE HARVEY GIRLS is one of his rare ventures into musical comedy, and moviegoers often recall him in tougher parts: playing opposite Tallulah Bankhead in Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT, you know you'd have to have balls of steel to carry off that assignment, or zipping through Mexico with Lucille Ball in Jules Dassin's noir road trip adventure TWO SMART PEOPLE. With Judy Garland he is noticeably gentler than he usually gets on screen; you can almost feel the effort involved. He seems more like an Angela Lansbury sort of guy, hard, attracted to the glitter, out for a good time. Then something clicks and he and Garland really start to click and the picture picks right up.

The DVD features the abysmal "March of the Dogies," a piece which has so many things wrong with it, you can see why Freed cut it out, but it's fascinating in its own right and it's great that they saved it. The song is bad, the singing isn't very good, the choreography pretty basic, and it seems they tried to save it by adding more and more elements to the number, you almost expect to see if not the kitchen sink, then the village pump, added to the mix. I suppose they were also trying to accommodate Hodiak's limitations as a dancer. He's no Ray Bolger (and no John Travolta). But his magnetism carries all before it, like a buffalo stampede.

Hodiak had the misfortune to be prominently featured in some of the era's most notorious failures, like SONG OF RUSSIA and MARRIAGE IS A PRIVATE AFFAIR, but in a way this has proved his salvation for he is not cursed with the overfamiliarity with which he disregard someone we've seen a zillion times, no matter how worthy, like Clark Gable or Gary Cooper. He's always fresh and exhibits new facets to his screen personality. He died in 1955, still a stranger, after a well-publicized marriage to a fellow thespian (Anne Baxter, with whom he starred in the low-key charmer SUNDAY DINNER WITH A SOLDIER).


One of Judy Garland and MGM's best musicals ever!   July 21, 2002
Robert E. Gold (Whitestone, NY United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I originally saw this lush technicolor musical on a Sunday afternoon (when I was in high school) wedged between commercials for detergents, paper towels, and various other household products. Despite the film being interrupted with these ads and being shown on a small tv screen, I was captivated by Judy Garland's beauty, sincerity, power to communicate as an artist, and her incomparable talent to act, sing, dance, and charm. This film does not have the same status as Meet Me in St. Louis or The Pirate or A Star is Born, but it is one of her best performances presented with a calmness and freshness that puts you, the viewer, at ease. Her character Susan Bradley is one of her best portrayals. She is funny, courageous, witty, determined, and strong. Like Esther Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis or Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz or Lily Mars in Presenting Lily Mars, Susan Bradley is a winner, the kind of woman you respect and admire, especially considering the time period the film was set in.

This dvd release is a true gift to those of us who are not only Judy Garland fans, but to anyone who has ever enjoyed the film musical. I won't rehash all the details found in other reviews of Amazon customers about the dvd, but I will add that the color transfer is simply awesome. It DOES look like the film was shot recently, not way back in 1945. The deleted musical numbers and the recording sessions for the songs is an extreme necessity for any Garland fan. I am really sorry they cut "My Intuition" since it's the only time Garland and John Hodiak sang together in the film, but I can understand why they cut "March of the Doagies." Don't get me wrong: I like it, but it almost looks a chase for Frankenstein's monster with Judy ending up on a stake being burned alive!

Now here's some trivia no one in their review has mentioned. Originally the film was going to be made as a drama for Lana Turner, but MGM, due to Rodgers and Hammerstein's success with "Oklahoma!", decided to turn it into a musical for their leading musical star. Originally, the story of the Harvey girls was based on book called The Harvey Girls by Samuel Hopkins Adams published in 1942. Another piece of trivia was that the lovely Cyd Charisse was dubbed in this film, but one would never notice since the dubber really captured her vocal quality and essence.

Without hesitation, this dvd release is an awesome addition to any collection. You won't be disappointed! Now we can await the arrival of other Judy Garland classic musicals for future releases. Who knows what other "undiscovered goodies" await us from the vaults of MGM?