Meet Me in St. Louis

"The day was bright, The air was sweet, The smell of honeysuckle almost knocked you off your feet ..." This is unashamed nostalgia for an idealised America, dating back to an age of innocence before the two World Wars.

It is 1903, and the city of St. Louis is ablaze with excitement as it prepares to host the World's Fair. Here in the geographic heart of the USA, the very pleasant Smith family lives in a very pleasant suburb of the very pleasant St. Louis. We watch the Smiths through the seasons and into Spring 1904 as they fall in love, dress up for Hallowe'en, bottle their home-made ketchup and .... well, ride the trolley.

This is a world of tranquillity where nothing can threaten the homely complacency of Middle America. The evening meal is always a wholesome family gathering, the month of July is always sunny, big brothers are always handsome Princeton freshmen and the iceman's mare knows the neighbourhood so well that she stops at each home on her round without needing to be told. The only shadow which falls across the Smiths' domestic bliss comes when Alonzo, the paterfamilias, proposes to move the household to New York. However, Alonzo soon realises what a terrible mistake it would be to tear his wife and daughters away from their beloved MidWest: he relents, and family harmony is restored.

This heartwarming, exuberant musical is one of the very best ever made, and MGM knew exactly what it was doing in terms of box office success. The film was calculated to cash in on the zeitgeist of 1944, the year in which vast American armies were sent across to Europe and the war in the Pacific turned decisively in America's favour. Millions of young American men found themselves far from home in what was certain to be the last Christmas of the War, and millions of families back home missed them terribly: " Some day soon we all will be together, If the fates allow. Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow ..."

In this idealised America, everyone is prosperous, everyone conducts himself like a good citizen should, old folks are cheerful, healthy and alert, domestic servants feign grumpiness but actually adore their masters, and teenage girls are flirtatious but impeccably proper. There are strong American folk-resonances in the homespun wisdom of the family elders, the strong, straight young adults and the 'down home' hearthside gatherings and dances. It could be argued that the film invokes an America that has never in fact existed. This maybe so, but the Perfect America which we experience here exerts an emotional pull far stronger than any real place could command.

Vincente Minnelli directed the movie with panache. There are many subtle but sure touches - for example, two short scenes which establish the proposition that the family's happiness is inextricably linked to St. Louis. Alonzo announces the move to New York, and with clever choreography Minnelli turns him into a pariah in his own living-room. Esther and Tootie gaze at the snowmen which they will have to abandon in the yard, and we know without any dialogue to help us that the eastward migration isn't going to happen. With similar cinematic economy, Minnelli shows us the happy commotion around the Christmas tree without allowing it to distract our attention from Alonzo and Anna, whose wordless reconciliation sets the seal on the plot. This is directing of rare skill.

In films of the 1960's and 70's a stock device was used: a sepia-tinted photograph would 'come to life' with colour and motion, to show that the scene was laid in the past. Minnelli employs the trick elegantly in this film, and I am not aware of any example which pre-dates this one.

This is a 'formula' movie, but its ingredients are so fine and they are combined with such marvellous skill that the whole eclipses the parts. Among the elements which contribute to the project's success are the songs - and the film contains three classics: "The Trolley Song", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and (of course) "Meet Me In St. Louis".

Judy Garland was 22 years old when she made this film (though she easily passes for a 17-year-old) and it was this movie which cemented her relationship with Minnelli. They married one year later and Liza was born in March 1946.

Predictably enough, the film has a happy ending. The teenage girls Esther and Rose are paired off, and the Smiths get to visit the World's Fair as one big happy family. As they look for the restaurant (once again, a meal signifies domestic harmony) they are distracted by the lighting-up of the city, a filmic metaphor for the approaching end of World War Two. The sisters are filled with awe at America's technological ascendancy, and that such miracles can be achieved by such folksy, simple people - "Right here where we live: right here in St. Louis!"

This is such a sweet, wonderful movie - a slice of 1900's America that probably was never so perfect, but we would like to think that it was. The storyline is not a love story between Esther (Garland) and "The Boy Next Door" (one of the three timeless classic songs found in this movie). The storyline is really about the whole Smith family, based on an actual family who lived in St. Louis at the turn of the century. The real-life "Tootie" Smith (played by Margaret O'Brien) wrote stories of her life for the NewYorker. These stories were bought and compiled into this classic musical.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" originated here, and has become a classic yuletide song. It has been sung a thousand times by a thousand artists, but no one could ever capture the heartfelt emotion expressed by Judy Garland. If it doesn't bring a tear to your eye as you listen to her sing the song to little Tootie, I would have to wonder if you have a heart at all.

The most fun song is "The Trolley Song" - you can even see that Judy herself had a ball singing it. That scene was done in one take.

Judy Garland never looked better in any of her films as she did in this one. Perhaps it was one of the happiest times in her life? It is well-known that she married director Vincent Minelli after this picture.

Beautifully directed, depicting with accuracy the passing of the seasons of one year in the life of the Smiths of St. Louis. What a fun, charming, movie. I could never tire of it.

A lot of the Hollywood studios during the War years made these nostalgic films about a simpler time when no foreign foe threatened our way of life. MGM's contribution to these films was not bettered served than by Meet Me In St. Louis. It's a simple story about the Smith family in 1904 St. Louis eagerly awaiting the World's Fair that would take place in their town. And to my knowledge no other World's Fair had as enduring a theme song as the one written for this fair, serving as the title song for the film.

The Smith family consists of parents Leon Ames and Mary Astor and their five children, son Henry Daniels, Jr. and daughters in descending order, Lucille Bremer, Judy Garland, Joan Carroll, and Margaret O'Brien. Grandfather Harry Davenport lives with the clan and so does live-in maid Marjorie Main who functions like Alice in the Brady household. A good meal and an occasional wisecrack to keep everyone in line.

Everyone's excited about the upcoming fair, St. Louis's rival city Chicago had one a decade earlier and Buffalo did three years earlier, but this one promises to be the most extravagant of all. Ames gets an opportunity in business and wants to move the family to New York, but one by one the family has or develops obligations and ties to St. Louis that makes them reluctant to leave. Not to mention they don't want to miss the fair.

Vincente Minnelli directed Meet Me In St. Louis and it was his first opportunity to work with Judy Garland whom he would marry after the film was finished. Judy got to do three of her most identified songs from the Hugh Martin-Ralph Blane score that was blended with some traditional music of the times. The Boy Next Door, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, and The Trolley Song all come out of Meet Me In St. Louis and were staple items at Garland concerts for years. One of the Oscar nominations that Meet Me In St. Louis received was for The Trolley Song for Best Original Song. It lost to Bing Crosby's Swinging On A Star that year. The other nominations were for musical scoring, color cinematography, and screenplay.

Margaret O'Brien did a remarkable job in this film, this was probably her best role while a child star at MGM. Not that she was the youngest and most appealing of the kids, she was that. But Minnelli did a great job in directing her. She had all the fears and trepidations of a child growing up and not wanting to leave all she's known and loved in St. Louis. Her acting reached its zenith in the scene where she destroys the carefully made snowmen in her yard and in the Halloween scene where she is induced to play a practical joke on a neighbor the rest of the kids regard as scary. Her number with Judy Garland, Under The Bamboo Tree is a gem.

Meet Me In St. Louis was one of the earliest and best films coming out of the Arthur Freed unit at MGM. It was films like these that gave the Freed unit and MGM its reputation for turning out the best in musical film entertainment. It can never be duplicated because you don't have studios with all that talent under contract.

In its way the film itself is as nostalgic as the time it celebrates. I guarantee your heart strings will go Zing Zing Zing as you hear Judy Garland sing the score from Meet Me In St. Louis.

I suspect I didn't give "Meet Me in St. Louis" the attention it fully deserved.

Sometimes, the words Technicolor, musical, Golden Age don't necessarily hit a sensitive chord and I blame it on the Millennial side of me, too blasé and hungry of modern significance. I could watch "The Wizard of Oz" for its status as an iconic classic, "A Star is Born" for its relevance and place in Judy Garland's filmography. But Vincente Minnelli's ode to Saint Louis never caught my attention despite its more than respectable reputation. And now that I saw it, and that I digested it, I realize how misinformed I was and I suspect this is a film I might want to watch again.

This is one of these pitch-proof movie where you keep waiting for something to happen... yet you realize that's not even the point. Indeed, who needs plot when you have the Smithes? This is a family full of such colorful characters that there's no room whatsoever for any plot or pre-written arc. Why should it anyway? Adapted from the happy memories of Sally "Tootie" Benson (yes, told from the little one's standpoint), the film displays such an exhilarating form of happiness that spoiling it with a plot would be a cinematic sin.

So let's visit the family! Leon Ames is Mr. Smith, father of one son and four daughters including Rose (Lucille Bremer), the second oldest Esther (Judy Garland) and the youngest one, Tootie (Margaret O'Brien), Mrs. Smith (Mary Astor) endure their shenanigans valiantly while they can count on the support of their cool and hilarious grandpa (Henry Davenport). These are the Smiths and as soon as they appear on the screen, we're literally caught in their communicative amiability and optimism with the opening theme of the same title.

"Meet Me in Saint Louis" belongs to these vignette family-themed movies such as "Amarcord" or "Radio Days" where it's just about getting a mood and feeling part of a loving community rather than watching something happening. And just when you think something ought to happen, false alarm, a new song pops up again to lift your spirit up and puts you in the most cheerful mood, even the "straight" sister Rose is fun to watch, especially during her shining moment where she gets quite a brush from her correspondent. And everything's in good spirit, no character is laughed at but rather laughed with.

The closest to a plot comes when Mr. Smith announces to the family that they're going to move to New York and the decision is irrevocable, by the time it happens, we got used to the seasonal enchantment of the city and can't imagine the Smiths anywhere outside St. Louis. Even New York resonates like a place of doom for the family, but it's deliberate since the film is a postcard recollection of middle-upper class family, from the perspective of Tootie, only spiced up with adult and romantic subplot and unforgettable musical numbers that were the perfect vehicles for Judy Garland.

If "Meet Me in Saint Louis" is incredibly catchy, it's nothing compared to the "Trolley Song" and of course the "Have Yourself a merry Little Christmas" that became Hollywood standards and among Garland's signatures. The two songs, listed in the AFI's Top 100, convey two opposite emotions: joy and sheer sadness, the excitement of being part of a city and the resignation before living, the Christmas moment is particularly heartbreaking as it allows Margaret O'Brien to implode her full acting power and make thousands of souls cry with empathetic tears. That the comic relief of the film, that bratty little kid could pull off such a masterful performance is one of the unexpected effects of the film. She would deservedly win an Academy Juvenile Award for her incredible performance.

I can go over and over about the film, its merit is to be so blatantly cheerful, never indulging to cheap thrills, even the love stories are sweetly naïve and idealistic, almost surreal but fitting for a fantasy picture whose purpose is to highlight the real thing about th film: family ties, and the bonds between sisters or parents and grandparents, the film is a non-stop delight, that can be regarded as itsch or campy but I find it more straightforward and honest than Minnelli' "An American in Paris". In a way, it's a fine companion piece to Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz with the same conclusion that there's no place like home... and sometimes, we don't cherish enough the place we live in.

My only complaint is Garland's awful hairstyle, was she trying to imitate Katharine Hepburn or what?

Many would call "Meet Me In St. Louis" to be a classic. I'm not sure I'd rate it that highly, although I'm not suggesting that it's a bad movie by any means. It's a very pleasant movie to watch, full of good old fashioned home town values. It follows the Smith family of St. Louis in the months leading up to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, beginning in the summer of 1903 and focusing very closely on the decision by father Alonso (Leon Ames) to take a new position in New York City and prepare the family for the move that they really don't want to make.

What I found most compelling in this was a couple of the performances. First was that of Judy Garland as Esther, one of the Smith daughters. Garland, of course, had become famous five years earlier with her spectacular turn as Dorothy in "The Wizard Of Oz" - a role that probably overshadowed everything else she did in her very successful career. This would have been her first significant "adult" role, and she handled it very well. Her success in "The Wizard" was no fluke, and this movie provided her with the opportunity to once again showcase her talent, particularly as a singer. The other performance that struck me was that of Margaret O'Brien as Tootie Smith - the youngest of the Smith sisters. O'Brien became a busy enough actress (mostly in television guest roles) but watching her in this made me surprised that she didn't become a bigger player in Hollywood. She was very good as Tootie - and there's one scene in particular in which she's simply spectacular, set on Christmas Eve 1903 as she breaks down into a raging tantrum over the family's pending move. Garland and O'Brien shared a song and dance scene in a performance of "Under The Bamboo Tree." This was also the movie in which Garland met her future husband, Vincente Minnelli, who was the director. There are a number of good musical numbers, and I was actually surprised to discover that it was in this movie that the song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" debuted.

What's lacking in this movie is any truly compelling story. I suppose the "glue" that holds it all together is the evolution of the romance between Esther and John Truett (played by Tom Drake.) But there's really no single narrative running through this, aside from the family's lack of enthusiasm about their move. But basically it's a series of vignettes moving us through the months from the summer of 1903 to the opening of the World's Fair at the movie's end. And yet, even with a story that isn't all that meaningful, this is an easy movie to watch and enjoy. It features a good cast - including June Lockhart (another well known actress in a very early role) and there's a sense of fun and humour involved in it. I really appreciated the vignettes around Halloween and Christmas in 1903 St. Louis. (7/10)