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While making Listen Darling, on JJudy and Freddie attended the premiere of MGM’s big budget Marie Antoinette. The recording sessions for “Zing!”, “On The Bumpy Road To Love,” and one take of “Ten Pins In The Sky,” are on the out of print 1995 laser double feature Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry/Listen Darling – these sessions have not yet been released on CD. “Ten Pins In The Sky” and “On The Bumpy Road To Love” were released on the 1996 2-CD set “ Judy Garland – Collector’s Gems from the M-G-M Films.” The song was shortened to a chorus and a half for the final film, but the complete pre-recordings can be found on the 2017 “Soundtracks” 2-CD set (the ballad version) and the 2014 “Variations” 4-CD set (swing version). Judy recorded two different versions (one “ballad” and one “swing”) of “Zing!” for Listen Darling on September 16, 1938, and filmed the sequence on the 22nd. The radio “air check” of this performance has survived and is one of the earliest known recordings of Judy Garland before MGM (and musical mentor Roger Edens) refined her style. She famously sang it on Novemon the NBC Radio show “The Shell Chateau Hour.” Her father was in the hospital with spinal meningitis, but had a radio bedside to hear his daughter sing. She had been singing the song throughout 1935 (and probably in 1934 as well). Judy sang “Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart” for her audition with MGM on September 13, 1935.
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Listen Darling was the last film Judy Garland made before achieving international stardom the following year in The Wizard of Oz. Rhythm and lilting melody are to be found in ‘On The Bumpy Road To Love,’ ‘Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart,’ and ‘Ten Pins In The Sky.'” Gloss of “The Akron Beacon Journal” stated, “Instead of star dust, they have sprinkled ‘Listen, Darling’ with songs by Judy Garland. As one unnamed local critic noted, “it is a gem of adolescent nonsense with laughs galore, interrupted only by choice serious bits that provide relief with pathos and effective tugs at the heart strings.”Įddie Cohen of the “Miami News” noted that it was the two songs, “Zing! Went The Strings of My Heart” and “On The Bumpy Road To Love” that held the first half of the film together, and although Judy was “weighed down with a maudlin role and manages to shine only when she is delivering her songs” those songs were delivered in her “best style, and alone managed to keep us in our seat.” He also felt that “Miss Garland’s forte is comedy.” Edward E. Listen Darlingwas well liked by critics and audiences alike. It was meant to give Judy more exposure in theaters around the country in anticipation of the eventual release of Oz.
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Even so, Judy still had some Oz duties including her first recording session for the film on September 30, 1938. Listen Darling was put into production when production on The Wizard of Oz was delayed. She gets two solos and both are winners, “Zing! Went The Strings of My Heart” and “Ten Pins In The Sky.” The former was heavily edited in the final cut, for some unknown reason. It’s also got something going for it that most of the “B” films (or any other films) of the time didn’t: Judy Garland singing.
Listen darling movie movie#
Any “B” movie from MGM in the late 1930’s was usually of a higher quality than the “A” films from the other studios. Listen Darling is definitely a “B” film, but that doesn’t take away from its merits.
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Of course, they just happen to find none other than Walter Pidgeon as the potential husband. The simple story revolves around the efforts of the characters played by Judy and Freddie Bartholomew in finding a suitable husband for Judy’s widowed mother by kidnapping her and taking her on the road in a trailer.