Little Nellie Kelly (1940)

Little Nellie Kelly

“Judy Garland’s not a girl, not yet a woman in Little Nellie Kelly, an oddball film that has her playing both mother and daughter. Loosely based on the George M. Cohan play of the same name, Garland finds herself stuck between the opposing male forces of her life in both incarnations and a metric ton of Irish clichés sprinkled on top. The whole thing feels engineered for viewings on St. Patrick’s Day and not for much else.   Here’s a bit of historical trivia for you: this is the lone death scene in Garland’s entire career. It comes early in the film when she dies post-childbirth, and she reappears as the teenaged daughter. Garland was eighteen at the time and plays both a little older and a little younger than her real age. The role(s) don’t give her much in the way of variati” read more