The Harvey Girls (1946)

Despite starring Judy Garland and containing one of the all-time great musical numbers ("The Atcheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"), this film has usually been considered one of the lesser MGM musicals.  Perhaps it is because of the rather strange premise of the Harvey House restaurants moving into the West with their wholesome, puritanically-dressed waitresses, as a counterbalance to the charms of the saloons and their "hostesses" (for hostesses, read whores).  This is vaguely, historically correct.  But the film certainly has its pleasures.  Apart from Garland in her prime, before her various physical problems kicked in, you have the eccentric dancing of "Tin Man" Ray Bolger and the unique scat of Virginia O'Brien.  Add to this Angela Lansbury as the leader of the hussies and Cyd Charisse as one of the good girls; incidentally their singing was dubbed, although Lansbury has sung very effectively in other films.  The only major miscasting was Judy's love interest in John Hodiak, one of the less appealing and more wooden planks of the period; but then again, it was one of the middle-budget pictures of the studio and he was probably a contract player.  However, it remains good enough, even with its limitations.