Little Nellie Kelly (1940)
(On Cable TV, March 2021) While Little Nellie Kelly isn’t much of a film on its own terms, it becomes more interesting in context. It’s one of the early films from MGM’s famed “Freed Unit” that eventually led to some of the best musicals in Hollywood history — and you can hear here a version of “Singin’ in the Rain” sung by none other than a youthful Judy Garland. Garland herself plays an Irish young woman who emigrates to America to follow her husband, but dies along the way — and Garland then returns to play her first character’s daughter. Filled to the brim with Irish idioms (is there anything more Hollywoodish than an Irish beat cop?), it’s adapted from an even older 1922 George M. Cohan Broadway play. As such, it’s not exactly a story told in subtleties — what with killing off a character and time-skipping ahead to her daughter, it’s generous with the “American Immigrant Experience,” the power of love over all other things, and (obviously) some song-and-dance to make everything go down easier. Garland here transitions from youth roles to more adult ones (though she would slip back with Meet Me in Saint-Louis), even if the 18-year-old actress was already acting ten years older with her ruinous lifestyle. Still, little of that was reflected on-screen as she played the role of an innocent felled by tragedy, and then an offspring trying to succeed despite obstacles — she’s young and pretty and lively. Considering this, you can see why Little Nellie Kelly is far more interesting as an early prototype of other, better movies.
