Originally developed as a dramedy for Clark Gable, the success of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! compelled MGM to retool Harvey Girls as a musical romcom for Judy Garland. Boasting massive sets, lavish costumes, a saturated technicolor palette, and several elaborate song and dance numbers, Harvey Girls used all that frippery to tell a story about the wild west being tamed by the waitresses of a fast food restaurant. It was received with moderate critical praise, a healthy box office, and an Academy Award for its hit song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe".
The text of Harvey Girls is featherweight by design, but its premise inevitably gives the movie a great deal of weighty subtext. Ryan is joined by Sylvan and Cheryl for a discussion of this oddly-constructed ode of nostalgic Western mythmaking. The thematic topics brought up in the conversation include Manifest Destiny, what brought about the commercial decline of Western filmmaking, what Harvey Girls says about the role of women in "proper society", and the arbitrary double standards applied to leading actors in Golden Age Hollywood.
One thing that kept popping up in the dialogue is how Harvey Girls blew many opportunities and missed a number of easy lay-ups (how do you bring Judy Garland and Ray Bolger onto a set together and then choose to have them NEVER interact in the final cut of the movie?) Also, Sylvan and Cheryl repeatedly express discomfort at Angela Lansbury being cast as the hardened administrator of the local bordello.
