Evidence of non-renewal: A 1945 work would have to have been renewed in 1972 or 1973; here are the three books with all the registrations and renewals for the category that includes photos for that time period: [1], [2], [3]. There are no relevant hits for "Judy", "Garland", "Carpenter", "MGM", "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer" or "The Harvey Girls". There's no evidence of copyright continuing to be claimed on this material. There were only a total of 1048 renewals for the artworks/photographs category for those two years combined.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
This is a standard publicity photo taken circa 1965 (based on comparison to similar film photos). As stated by film production expert Eve Light Honthaner in The Complete Film Production Handbook, (Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.):
"Publicity photos (star headshots) have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary."
Nancy Wolff, includes a similar explanation:
"There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them." (The Professional Photographer's Legal Handbook By Nancy E. Wolff, Allworth Communications, 2007, p. 55.)
Film industry author Gerald Mast, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes:
"According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film's copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the stills. Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible."
Kristin Thompson, committee chairperson of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies writes in the conclusion of a 1993 conference with cinema scholars and editors, that they "expressed the opinion that it is not necessary for authors to request permission to reproduce frame enlargements. . . [and] some trade presses that publish educational and scholarly film books also take the position that permission is not necessary for reproducing frame enlargements and publicity photographs."[4]
{{Information |Description ={{en|1=A publicity photo of Judy Garland used in conjunction with The Harvey Girls.}} |Source =[http://www.thejudyroom.com/gallery/portraits/Resources/gallery125.png?207 The Judy Room] |Author =Eric Carpenter