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In 1985, 16 years before her memoir became the basis for the television film Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, Lorna Luft narrated this documentary focusing on her mother's "second career" following her years at MGM. The 59-minute retrospective (reduced from its original 90 minutes) collects comments from family and colleagues, shows clips from concerts at the London Palladium, Carnegie Hall, and the Palace Theater, a previously unseen 30-second scene cut from her famous comeback film, A Star Is Born, and scenes from her short-lived TV show. Not surprisingly, some of the footage spotlights Garland's affection for her kids: she shares the stage at the Palladium with Liza Minnelli and appears with Lorna and Joe Luft at the Palace and sings to them on her TV show. And while many of the songs are shown only in brief clips, there are a number of complete performances, including a duet with Barbra Streisand of "Get Happy" and "Happy Days Are Here Again," her dramatically charged rendition of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" following JFK's death, "Ol' Man River," and "The Man That Got Away." And of course "Over the Rainbow" is here, in a 1955 performance that is the only TV recording of how she performed the song in concert: sitting on the edge of the stage, face-to-face with the audience. And it's a credit to Garland that even in hobo makeup, she lets the raw emotion of the song pour through. --David Horiuchi
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