Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

calvinnme Movie musicals don't get any better than this! In "The Wizard of Oz" Judy Garland's character, Dorothy, opines, "there's no place like home." In "Meet Me in St. Louis" we are treated to a depiction of exactly what an ideal home, a home to cherish and nostalgically remember, is. The Smith family lives in a sprawling and lovely house in the nicer part of St. Louis. Three generations of the family live together: Grandpa Smith, Lon (a prosperous attorney )& Anna Smith and their five children: Lon Jr. (off to Princeton), Rose (smitten with Warren Sheffield), Esther (getting to know "the boy next door") and the two youngest girls, Agnes and irrepressible "Tootie" (always up to mischief). Family drama unfolds! The brilliantly talented Vincente Minneli has created in this film an irresistible homage to home and family circa 1903/04 with the added piece de resistance of Judy Garland singing some of her most well-known and beloved songs: "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Beautiful!Garland is the supreme entertainer of her generation and possibly for all time. She can relate a song to her audience and make them feel what is in her heart. Nowhere in St. Louis is this more clear than in her rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - a carol with obvious tear-jerking sadness and poignancy. However, the film's most exuberant display of joyous passion remains 'The Trolley Song'. At any rate, enjoy! This is one film that never gets old and Judy Garland was never more beautiful than she was right here.

gavin6942 In the year before the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.This film took me a while to warm up to. Judy Garland, the star of the film, is dressed horribly with awful hair, and frankly I find her singing voice quite atrocious. How can this be? In others films ("Wizard of Oz" and "A Star in Born") she sings so nicely. Of course, the songs in general are pretty awful in this one... not fun like other musicals (e.g. "State Fair").I would have rated the film lower, but the Halloween scene redeemed it. Kids starting fires, dumping in old furniture, and smashing people in the face with flour? Priceless.

David Ferguson Greetings again from the darkness. There are, even amongst otherwise intelligent movie lovers, those who proudly proclaim "I don't like musicals". It's a somewhat understandable stance since so many of this genre are simply a group of songs linked together by a thin story with uninteresting characters. However, when done well, the musical can be a most enjoyable, emotional and entertaining ride. One of the best and most beloved is director Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis.If you were making a musical in 1944, your dream cast would certainly include Judy Garland. She was 22 years old at the time, just a few years removed from her iconic role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Ms. Garland was desperately trying to break free of her "Oz" and "Andy Hardy" teenage ingénue image and transition to adult roles. In fact, she pushed back hard at MGM against being cast in this film. Because of this, she initially struggled with the character of Esther until finally grasping the tone that director Minnelli was after. The result is clearly one of her best performances, and maybe her most beautiful look ever on screen.The story is broken into four sections … the four seasons leading up to the 1904 World's Fair to be held in St. Louis. The Smith family lives in a charming upper middle class Victorian home that serves as the centerpiece for most scenes … especially the intricate, winding mahogany staircase, and the elaborate gaslight fixtures throughout. Mr. and Mrs Smith are played by Leon Ames and Mary Astor (known best for The Maltese Falcon). They are joined in the house by a son Lon (Henry H Daniels, Jr), four daughters (Rose – Lucille Bremer, Esther – Judy Garland, Agnes – Joan Carroll, Tootie – Margaret O'Brien), a spry grandfather (Harry Davenport), and wise-cracking housekeeper (Marjorie Main). The family dynamics are such that numerous sub-stories are constantly being juggled.There are numerous pieces and tidbits associated with this film, so let's discuss just a few. While audiences today may find 7 year old Margaret O'Brien's performance as the youngest daughter Tootie to be a bit over the top, she won an honorary Oscar that year as the Best Juvenile Actor. Two sequences in particular stand out: the quite dark and harsh Halloween portion which accurately displays the dangerous activities of that era (today's trick or treat seems quite tame), and the song and dance routine performed in the parlor while wearing a nightgown. This is also the film where director Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland first met. They were married the following year and of course had a daughter, Liza Minnelli. All three were Oscar winners: Judy in 1940 for Best Juvenile Actor, Vincente for directing Gigi (1958), and Liza for Best Actress in Cabaret (1972).Sally Benson's series of short stories published in the New Yorker magazine inspired the film. The stories were based on Ms. Benson's childhood in St. Louis and she consulted on the script and set. In the movie, the Smith house is located at 1935 Kensington. For filming, the house was built on the MGM backlot on what became known as St. Louis Street. The street was used for many films, and the same house was used for the original Cheaper By the Dozen (1950). Sadly, the street fell into disrepair and was later destroyed and sold off by MGM (it's now condos and office buildings). Of course, this is a musical so the songs deserve mention. Many were original compositions for the film, including "The Trolley Song" (nominated for a Best Song Oscar) and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", the latter showcasing Ms. Garland in peak singing voice. The film was a huge box office success and was nominated for four Oscars (no wins). The set design and costumes are extraordinary, and the story is quite affecting as it focuses on family and what makes a home so special. This is a wonderfully sentimental taste of Americana at the turn of the century, and one of the best examples of how effective a musical can be in telling a story and connecting an audience to the characters.

Gord Jackson Next to "Easter Parade", "Meet Me In St. Louis" is my favourite Judy Garland vehicle from the MGM film-factory days. Chock full of those freshly scrubbed, wholesome family values that Hollywood used to love to propagate (if not necessarily emulate), the picture is a warm, endearing fantasy with just enough realism to keep it out of the treacle jar. Opening in the summer of 1904, it starts innocently enough with Esther Smith (Judy Garland) mooning over boy next door John Truitt (Tom Drake), older sister Rose (Lucille Bremer) pining for Warren Sheffield (Robert Sully) with everyone happily laughing and singing about the impending world's fair coming to St. Louis next spring. So far, so predictably good. But then the plot gets seriously leavened as we are introduced to Tootie Smith (Margaret O'Brien), the youngest sister of the clan whose girlish pranks and blood-curdling prose mix a little comedy with some genuinely mean-spirited Halloween behavior that take us to the darker side of human nature, adding some much needed sinister malevolence when it is most needed. But there's more as the plot thickens still further when patriarch Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames) imperiously (albeit with the best of intentions) informs everyone, the day following Halloween, that the family is leaving St. Louis for New York. Initially laughed off, this unexpected announcement turns out to be one post-Halloween trick that is no treat as nobody, wife Anna (Mary Astor) included, is much amused. "I don't believe it!" "It's true: I'm to start the first of the year. We'll leave right after Christmas." With noteworthy attention to period detail, the film is brilliantly directed by Vincent Minnelli, trumpets some excellent acting from its ensemble cast, and includes an engaging Ralph Blane/Hugh Martin score that, for the first time in motion picture history integrates the songs directly into the plot, something pioneered for the stage a year earlier by Rodgers and Hammerstein when "Oklahoma" premiered on Broadway. Better yet, "Meet Me In St. Louis" also deftly combines Christmas candy and homespun virtue with the contemporary reality of the danger of making the business agenda, the bottom line, the sole arbitrator of what really counts, even if that wasn't the film's original purpose. Indeed, with the Smith's standing in for all of us, the movie is not just an enjoyable, warm/fuzzies romp through a bygone era. It is also a timely reminder that even the best of well intentioned actions can elicit unforeseen responses, that people, not impersonal automatons, are the final repository of all human actions, noble, imperious or mean-spirited.