Staying up and watching Summer Stock
By Sissy15
@sissy15 (12627)
United States
June 11, 2026 11:11pm CST
It's almost midnight here in Ohio right now, and we have a severe storm watch until 5 AM, so I'll be trying to stay awake until that ends in case we get any tornadoes. I'm not sure if we are supposed to have any with this storm or not, but I plan to be prepared just in case. My son used to be terrified of storms, but recently he's not as scared as he used to be, even several months ago. My son is already fast asleep on the couch. It's hot in our house, so we've all been sleeping downstairs to save on the electric bill. My son asked me to put on a movie and fell asleep about five minutes in.
I have to say the medication they have him on has been helping him sleep, which was something he struggled with prior to this, and it really made his anxiety and depression worse. While he sleeps and I am on here, I have Summer Stock playing in the background.
I have always loved Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. They've been in three movies together (I'm not counting ones they both had brief parts in). Gene's first movie was "For Me and My Gal!" in which he starred with Judy Garland, and he always credited her for helping him in that movie. By the time Judy did "Summer Stock," no one wanted to work with her because she was so into her drug addiction and was difficult to work with, but Gene wanted to help her the way she had helped him. The very studio that caused Judy to have that addiction no longer wanted to deal with her because of that addiction. They really did Judy dirty. Gene fought for her. The interesting thing about Gene Kelly is that he was not known for his patience, but he had it for Judy. Debbie Reynolds hated working with Gene because he was a perfectionist and could be a tyrant. Debbie credited Fred Astaire for working with her and helping her with her dancing when she was doing "Singin' in the Rain" because Gene definitely didn't help her. He even admitted that he was surprised Debbie talked to him at all in later years because of how he treated her during that movie.
Just a little movie trivia. I tend to rewatch some favorites when I'm writing so I don't get as distracted by something I haven't seen. I love classic movies. I also have a fondness for the 80s and 90s movies I grew up watching as a child. I also like more recent movies, but haven't watched many of them in a while.
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1 response
@sissy15 (12627)
• United States
13 Jun
"The Pirate" was a good one. I've seen the vast majority of Gene Kelly's movies. Poor Debbie, she was such a talented actress and definitely didn't deserve Gene's treatment of her, but at least Gene owned up to it, which isn't something a lot of actors do. I don't feel like Gene was trying to be nasty, but that he had high expectations and he would let his anger slip. I remember reading that Gene used to lock Frank Sinatra up in a room to get him to rehearse, because otherwise Frank wouldn't practice anything more than once. Esther Williams also said that Gene was mean to her, too, though. This is another one of those two things can be true things. Gene probably could be a very nice guy, but he could also be a jerk. I'm guessing a lot of it depended on how he knew them and when he worked with them. I remember reading and watching things with him and about him, and there were a lot of people who said nice things about him and there were a lot who had some not so nice things to say about him. I think Gene was a hard worker with strict discipline that had high expectations for everyone around him, even when it wasn't their fault they were struggling, and when they didn't meet them, he became a monster to deal with.
1 person likes this
@sissy15 (12627)
• United States
13 Jun
@AmbiePam That's very possible. I was talking about this last night with my mom. People are claiming there is more mental illness now, and I am like, but is there? Things like that were not diagnosed back then; it's not that it didn't exist, it's that it wasn't diagnosed. A lot of things were swept under the rug, or they tried to "fix" things, and when it didn't work, they'd institutionalize people. If it were a mental illness that people could hide, they did. I just always found it interesting that Gene was so sweet with Judy and so nasty to Debbie. Judy had issues that weren't even her own fault. MGM loaded her up with sleeping pills to make her sleep and pep pills to wake her up, and completely mistreated her. When she became addicted to the pills they gave her and became unreliable, they basically washed their hands of her, and they were just legally able to get away with this back then. These are the things that happened back then. Gene, I think, saw how they treated her and had some empathy, especially after how she had helped him in his first film. I just find it interesting that he could have patience, despite not always being known to have patience. I don't know if that is mental health or just a personality trait for him.
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