You Don’t Need An Easter Bonnet To Know Which Way The Wind Blew-And It Ain’t Toward Fifth Avenue-Judy Garland And Fred Astaire’s “Easter Parade” (1948)-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Lance Lawrence

Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland the envy of every drag queen in the world including writer Seth Garth’s old neighborhood corner boy Timmy Riley who perfected his Judy Garland act into the biggest draw in North Beach once he got out of the closet of the Acre in North Adamsville, Fred Astaire, and assorted dancers and hoofers to make a man weep, with Peter Lawford before his stint as Nick Charles in the television version of the Thin Man and male escort to one of the Kennedy fortune women, the Jack Kennedy generation women so there is no confusion, 1948     

Easter, Easter parades via the television with the Mayfair swells, a term totally unknown to me at the time, strutting up and down Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, meant nothing to me, nothing at all. The simple fact was from an early age I, my family, and especially my four older brothers shunned that so-called holiday since rather than a time to strut our stuff I, we tried to bury the occasion. (I won’t go into the meaning of the holiday to us then, the Christian holiday, where Jesus arose from the dead and went heaven-bound since this screed is about more earthly, plebian and mundane things, rough-hewed sociology if you like not theology.) Bury it for the simple reason that the day represented one of the two times in the year that we received new clothes via my hard-pressed father’s always inadequate paychecks (that “inadequate” something I also didn’t know at the time but probably would not have mattered in the social sense which is what this is all about). The other time of course the start of the school year.         

What is the big deal lots of people, working people, back in the 1970s were hard -pressed to provide their kids and themselves adequate and varied clothing. Half the writers at this publication, for instance, faced the same situation or something roughly approximate which is probably why these many years they are still writing stuff about those times in this space. The big deal is what those clothes were like, what made other kids laugh at me, us when we went to Easter Mass or the next day when we went to school an occasion when everybody, everybody who celebrated Easter which meant just about everybody in the Heights section of Troy in upstate New York. 

See, my, our mother, besides being a bad cook which led me more times than I can count over to my grandmother’s house where she always had something on the old-time cast iron stove that in itself made the food that much tastier, had no taste in clothes. No sense of what growing young boys would want to wear. To emulate whoever were the male fashion-plates or just cool.

Part of her lacks was the lack of money to clothe five strapping boys but part of it was where she shopped. These were the days before Wal-Mart expanded a lot from the South and so what she went to shop was the local equivalent of that type of store called the Bargain Center. The place, a one store operation, was the graveyard for last year’s or maybe the year before’s styles which in the fast changing fashion world of youth meant not cool, not cool at all. Moreover, if it wasn’t outdated fashion it was overstocked or unsaleable goods. I will give my forever classic example. One year, a year when pin-striped shirts were out of fashion and the color purple never in fashion she bought each of us matching shirts like that. I could hear the titter in the pews as the five of us cam marching down the church aisle. The next day was worse, much worse. Thinking back on it I would have had no trouble with one of the lines that I believe the late rapper Biggie Small put out-“birthdays were the worse days, Christmas kind of missed us.” Easter, sad sack Easter too, brother. But enough. 

Now onto a review of high society Fifth Avenue Easter Parade which has nothing to do with what I just mentioned above but which new site manager Greg Green has encouraged us to mention as we go about our reviewing chores to let the reader know more about us and here why Easter stuff makes me blue even now. Of course, it may be a good luck sign, despite the blues, that this musical hit of 1948 is only marginally about Easter, or Easter Parades. Rather the film as to be expected when names like Judy Garland and Fred Astaire are atop the marque is about song and dance. Here is the play by play or rather the Irving Berlin playlist which is really what every musical is about. Well that and the inevitable happy ending to the eternal boy meets girl trope that has not only saved many a Hollywood film, not necessary on this one, but has been the bane of the Western literary canon and hard to topple as mightily as we have tried to wean the damn idea from the list of story-line idea.          

Fred, let’s use their real names since nobody cares about the various stage names because the music and dance are their real calling cards, had been partnered up with Nadine in a dance team around 1912. Did pretty well, career-wise and between themselves, maybe even lovers. But Nadine wanted to go solo, go to the “bigs” alone making me, and maybe others, wonder about that love stuff between them. After pouting for a while, really after being in his cups Fred figures he can make a star out of any hoofer and to experiment he picks up Judy out of nowhere. Teaches her plenty, makes her okay, just okay because what he did was teach her to be a Nadine wannabe. No good.  

Once he lets Judy go through her paces though they also are ready for the “bigs” figure to be in one of Nadine’s shows. Not a good idea because if Nadine does not want Fred she also does not want what she sees as rival Judy’s growing love for Fred. Wants him pining for his thwarted love. Figures. Not to worry though before this thing is over, before Judy and Fred promenade down, or is it up, Fifth Avenue in their beautiful clothes (not a pin-stripe or purple shirt in sight) to not give lie to the title of the film Fred realizes that he is not pounding his heart for bitch Nadine but love for Miss Judy Garland. Some great but probably now not well-known songs except by serious American songbook aficionados from Irving Berlin. Except as well you can bet your Easter bonnet or top hat people still know Easter Parade. Still doesn’t take that childhood sting away, probably never will.