75 YRS AGO THIS WEEK:@LIFE's Movie of the Week: Babes in Arms w/ No. 1 star, Mickey Rooney. http://bit.ly/1rtXsoX

75 YRS AGO THIS WEEK:@LIFE's Movie of the Week: Babes in Arms w/ No. 1 star, Mickey Rooney. http://bit.ly/1rtXsoX

"Cinema sophisticates conscientiously avoid double features, Bingo nights and pictures featuring juvenile stars. But such moviegoers have found it increasingly difficult to skip Mickey Rooney because this precocious, strawhaired, kazoo-voiced adolescent has been appearing in better and better pictures. An indefatigable mugger, he has built up an enormous Rooney following in wholesome clean-living sections of the American public."

From 1939 through 1941, Rooney was the No. 1 box office draw in the United States.