"I Could Go On Singing"

If only she could've...

At the suggestion of Bill Phair, who produces the wonderful podcast The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm, I rented I Could Go On Singing starring Judy Garland this week to study for my embodiment of her for Halloween. It turned out that the DVD came after our party, but I watched it anyway and had a mah-velous time doing so.

Judy at the height of her career in A Star is Born and on her way out in I Could Go On Singing

Between A Star is Born in 1954 and I Could Go On Singing in 1963 things had come full circle for Judy's roles in films. Going from playing the survivor wife of an alcoholic in Star, she gets to play the alcoholic survivor herself in Singing, and boy is she compelling. Knowing what Judy went through in her own personal life, struggling with addictions to pills and booze, one can't help but feel for Judy as she sings "It Never Was You" or "By Myself," songs with self-explanatory titles of longing and regret. Six years away from her death, this Judy is fierce and alive. It's both easy and difficult watching her performance to believe this was her last film role, but damn is it a good one. Sure the plot of the movie (fun and bitter incidents surrounding a custody battle set in London) verges on soap opera, but Judy is the rope that holds the soap together. And she sure doesn't drop it.