Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

I Could Go on Singing Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 20, 2016

1963 really should have been a banner year for Judy Garland. The much beloved entertainer had not one but two major feature films open within just a few weeks of each other, I Could Go on Singing and A Child Is Waiting, both of which offered the singing dynamo the chance to once again prove her dramatic acting chops. Later that year, Garland would also launch what was at the time one of the most highly anticipated weekly variety shows of the 1963-64 season, her eponymous hour which CBS was certain would finally knock Bonanza off of its ratings perch. Unfortunately, Garland was also (as she tended to be) up to her eyeballs in both personal and financial straits that year, and neither the films nor the television series really connected with the viewing public, despite all three having received at least sporadic acclaim. A Child is Waiting was probably the more maudlin enterprise of the two films starring Garland that appeared in 1963, but there’s little doubt that I Could Go On Singing also wants to tug (maybe rip) at the heartstrings as well, offering Judy as a not very thinly masked version of herself, a singing superstar named Jenny Bowman who has to come to terms with the fact that decisions she’s made throughout her life and career have now led to certain unavoidable consequences.

Mort Lindsey is credited with the music for I Could Go On Singing (not including the variegated song score), and he’s actually seen conducting the orchestra in a scene. Those who remember the old Merv Griffin Show will recall Lindsey as the musical director of that enterprise, and one of the most interesting episodes of that long running talkshow involved Griffin actually talking to Lindsey when guest Mel Tormé came on to promote his book The Other Side of the Rainbow with Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol, a fascinating book (I highly recommend it, even for those who don’t particularly care for Garland) which documented the tortuous run of The Judy Garland Show, one which involved the talents of both Tormé and Lindsey. The bottom line of the book, and perhaps one which applies to I Could Go On Singing as well, is that Judy was the very definition of temperamental, a woman who had flights of manic genius but who would just as quickly collapse into depressive bouts that made her virtually unmanageable. The interesting commentary on this disc by David Del Valle and Steven Peros mentions how the crew of this film went from adoration of the star to referring to Garland as “it” within just a few days, more evidence of what a troubled shoot this must have been.

The basic plot of I Could Go on Singing finds Jenny Bowman returning to London to headline at the Palladium (sound familiar, Garland fans?), something that gives her the opportunity to reconnect with her long ago paramour David Donne (Dirk Bogarde), a physician who’s seen tending to her in the film’s first scene. It turns out that the couple’s erstwhile romance ended up producing a child, though the young boy has no idea that Donne, supposedly his adoptive father, is his actual biological father, and certainly no idea that Jenny is his real mother. Jenny’s importunings have led to Donne reluctantly agreeing to a “mother and child reunion”, albeit without the knowledge of the child that he is indeed reuniting with his mother.

The film tiptoes around this potential melodrama, offering Garland a few interstitial sequences where she just gets to stand on a stage and sing, in a gambit that is at least somewhat reminiscent of her take on A Star is Born. Jenny pretty much takes over the life of her son, a sweet kid named Matt (Gregory Phillips, in an accomplished performance), becoming for all the world a bit like a veritable Auntie Mame to the kid, traipsing around London, buying him gifts (including a prized—and hilariously huge—tape recorder) and promising him a trip to Paris. David is temporarily shunted off to the sidelines, returning later in the film for an expected showdown which leads to a bittersweet finale.

I Could Go on Singing presents an admirably unvarnished Garland, and while her proclivities toward hard living show in her vocals, they also help to commendably inform her full throated (pun intended) dramatic performance. This film has been cited for its several minute uninterrupted take which finds Jenny speaking to Matt on the telephone, a scene which both harkens back to a similar conceit in Luise Rainer’s celebrated Oscar winning work in The Great Ziegfeld, as well forward to yet another phone sequence featuring Garland’s own daughter Liza Minnelli, in her Oscar nominated performance in The Sterile Cuckoo. Garland is just a trifle mannered in this particular sequence, but she also delves into the heart of her character in an honest feeling way. I Could Go on Singing ended up being the last feature film that Garland completed, and as I believe Bosley Crowther once opined in the subdeck for a review of this film collected in an old paperback book I used to have as a kid, “Oh, Judy, if only you had.”

I Could Go on Singing Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I Could Go On Singing is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Culled from the MGM catalog, this boasts a generally above average looking presentation, though one that suffers from some curious color anomalies from time to time. Many folks tend to take Fox releases to task for a perceived "blue bias", and without getting into hackle raising debates, I'll simply point to Judy's skin tones in examples like the tenth screenshot and say that things look just slightly "off" at times. That said, the palette is rather nicely saturated, with elements like the nice green and blue ensemble Judy wears or her striking red dress in the "By Myself" sequence looking vivid and natural. Grain, while a trifle heavy at times (especially in what I assume was second unit work like the helicopter sequence above London), resolves naturally and encounters no compression issues. Detail is often quite striking in close-ups, and contrast is solid, helping to ameliorate some less than forceful blacks.

I Could Go on Singing Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I Could Go On Singing features a nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track, one which offers suitable support for the film's long dialogue sequences as well as the interstitial musical elements. Judy's voice had seen (heard?) better days by the time of this film, but she's quite moving, especially in the softer ballads like Weill and Anderson's elegant "It Never Was You". She shreds through barnburners like "By Myself" with considerably more gusto, and if her actual vocal technique has a few wobbles and voice breaks, her dramatic impetus is so overwhelming that it hardly matters. Fidelity is excellent, and there are no problems of any kind to report.

I Could Go on Singing Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries:

  Lawrence Turman, Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman

  David Del Valle and Steven Peros

• Isolated Score Track (with some effects) is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• Original Theatrical Trailer #1 (1080p; 3:47)


• Original Theatrical Trailer #2 (1080p; 3:06)


• TV Spot (1080p; 00:57)


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)

I Could Go on Singing Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Both of Judy's 1963 feature films prove that, whatever her personal problems may have been, she was still capable of delivering really visceral dramatic performances. I Could Go on Singing ultimately doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions (one can easily imagine a kind of "well, we can have a happily ever after" accruing post-credits, despite the implications otherwise), but it's often quite moving, and Garland, Bogarde and (especially) Phillips are all excellent. Technical merits are generally very good to excellent, and I Could Go on Singing comes Recommended.