USA, 113 minutes Director: Vincente Minnelli Writers: Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe, Sally Benson, Victor Heerman, William Ludwig, Sarah Y. Mason, Doris Gilver Photography: George J. Folsey Music: Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, Roger Edens, Conrad Salinger Editor: Albert Akst Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Tom Drake, Leon Ames, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, June Lockhart, Harry Davenport, Marjorie Main, Joan Carroll, Hugh Marlowe, Robert Sully, Chill Wills
I always think of Meet Me in St. Louis as a Christmas movie because the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is such a memorable part of it, but it's actually an all-seasons story playing across a single year, from one summer to the following spring. I also tend to keep thinking of it as a '50s picture because the technicolor is so glowing, warm, and magnificent it feels about 15 years more modern. But there it is, cognitive dissonance or no, all the way back in 1944, taking a sudsy warm bath in nostalgia for 1903. When will it ever end? Nowadays we are nostalgic for the 1980s, when we were nostalgic for the 1940s. I should also mention this picture left me cold when I finally caught up with it for the first time not so long ago. I might have liked it more if I'd seen it first when I was younger. But honestly, it can ooze saccharine like putrescence (e.g., everything about the "You and I" scene).
Lately, seeing more movies from the times and coming to a late appreciation for the MGM musical as such, and Judy Garland specifically, I've made my peace with the relentless corn, which is not actually that relentless, only in isolated spots. If you take this movie for what it is—a wartime cotton candy escapism musical made of costumes and lighting and nostalgia—it's virtually undeniable, with decent to great tunes and dance sequences and a musical family clan like the von Trapps in The Sound of Music (obviously inspired by the children here, notably Margaret O'Brien, who is notable). But I want to talk about Meet Me in St. Louis as my somewhat unlikely pick for a Halloween picture this year (or sharing it with last week's Dead of Night). The bizarre Halloween quarter of Meet Me in St. Louis was reportedly director Vincente Minnelli's favorite part of the movie to work on, and it shows from the opening crane shot on.
There are strange details of Halloween rituals. The costumes, for example, are rags and charcoal markings. The youngest in the family, a morbid tomboy named Tootie—O'Brien, a careening prodigy who is half-splendid and half-trainwreck all through—explains that she is a horrible ghost and her sister Agnes (Joan Carroll) is a terrible drunken ghost. One was murdered in a den of thieves and the other died of a broken heart. She's never been buried because people are afraid to come near her. Then there is this dialogue: Mother (a graceful Mary Astor): "Now children, when people answer the doorbells, don't throw too much flour." Tootie: "Just a small handful right in their faces." This prank is referred to by the kids as "killing" someone. All this is news to me. I had a thought it might be like proto-giallo or something from the Italian Minnelli but the internet assures me some of these goings-on (such as flour throwing) have some historical basis that may make them plausible enough for 1903.
Still, I remain shocked, most of all by the bonfire. It's a bonfire. It's in the street, it's about the size of an automobile, and there is obviously no adult supervision. Nobody is older than 12. Apparently these kids are tearing down fences and stealing furniture to keep the flames stoked. They are continually busy at it. Some of the stuff going in the fire looks like parts of carriages and there are also nondescript wooden boxes of many sizes. When Tootie screws up her courage and kills a neighbor of whom they're all afraid (because of his bulldog), she's declared the bravest and the most horrible of them all and given a dining room chair to throw on the fire in recognition.
Later, Tootie is injured and needs stitches in a prank that involves stuffing a dress and putting it on the trolley tracks to create a riot of reaction and possibly throw the trolley off the tracks. The words might even still be ringing in our heads from not 20 minutes before: "Clang, clang, clang went the trolley / Ding, ding, ding went the bell / Zing, zing, zing went my heart strings / From the moment I saw [the body] I fell." Everyone laughs Archie Comics horse laughs over Tootie's hospital bed about the incident as if spending part of Halloween on such business is perfectly normal. At the end of the night they all gather together for ice cream. The maid (Marjorie Main) comes in and says, "Well, another Halloween. We're all a year older."
In fairness, Tootie is an unusually morbid girl at other times of the year too. But I don't believe Halloween has ever been observed the way it's shown here in St. Louis or Italy or on any planet. And then just like that the picture pivots into winter, and Christmas, and snow, and a group of snowmen that are more like an art installation in a sculpture garden. The story lurches into a manufactured happy gear, but not before we get Judy Garland giving it up for "Have Yourself." I was raised on the Sinatra version myself, so in a way I prefer those lyrics, which scrub out the melancholy more. But exactly because these small sad lyrical notes are alien, they feel unnaturally vivid with Garland singing them before us. For example: "Once again, as in olden days / Happy golden days of yore / Faithful friends that were dear to us / Will be near to us once more" (as opposed to Sinatra's "Faithful friends that are").
Well, that's Judy Garland for you all wrapped up in a beautiful Christmas bow. She's an iconic movie star for a reason and that song is enough to make the movie right there, never mind the treacle. But I love the Halloween section too. In its way, Meet Me in St. Louis is a kind of anthology film like Dead of Night, with notable shifts of tone and discontinuity in the changing seasons, even as it tells a rolling frame story. The autumn sequence is also unusual in that it mostly leaves out Garland and many of the musical trappings. The spring sequence is a coda of under five minutes, celebrating the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. As a musical Meet Me in St. Louis soars on "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself," plus there's one of those dance sequences that make me insanely happy for "Skip to My Lou." This movie is a mixed bag—exactly.
The Halloween depicted in the movie is much closer to accuracy than you think. The “trick-or-treat” candy ritual began in the US in the late 1940s/early 1950s, in California. It sprang from a block party held in an economically depressed area, to help all the kids get some candy. Prior to that, Halloween was more like a Mischief Night or Hell Night; there are records of children and “ruffians” begging for pennies and threatening violence. There are even records of some householders heating pennies to red-hot as a way to teach the unruly a lesson. In fact, before the mid-19th century, Halloween and Christmas had a lot in common. Which is why Christmas celebrations were banned in some of the original 13 colonies in what became the USA. At Christmas, groups of toughs — often drunk — would ambush people and try to break into houses. Some wore masks. It was a big problem in both cities and the countryside. Google the histories of both holidays. BTW the best book about the history of Christmas in the US is by a historian, and is called “The Battle for Christmas.” It has nothing to do with the current use of that phrase, as it was written at least 29 years ago.Reply
I guess when we're whining about how fucked everything is today we can comfort ourselves reflecting that Halloween could now already be more like The Purge franchise if we hadn't started handing out candy to trick-or-treaters in volume back in the day.Reply
I recently tried to watch this movie. I remember trying once before but something kept setting me off. It was the dialog of the two youngest girls. I'm going to stab you in the stomach? And tootsie repeating the word kill over and over and then the bonfire! I hate it. Nothing Judy Garland does saves it for me.Reply Replies Anonymous1:34 PM, September 06, 2023
Get a life. Things weren't all cup cakes and butterflies in our past.
It's Tootie, not tootsie. And I don't recall her repeating the word "kill" over and over. She says it once, then her sister says it a couple of times, first time because she's amazed at what Tootie has done, and second time trying to get the other kids' attention.
In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
In the summer of 1903, the Smith family leads a comfortable upper-middle class life. Alonzo Smith and his wife Anna have a son, Lon Jr., and four daughters: Rose, Esther, Agnes, and Tootie. Esther, the second-oldest daughter, is in love with the boy next door, John Truett, although he does not notice her at first. Tootie rides with iceman Mr. Neely and debates whether St. Louis is the nation's top city. Rose, the eldest daughter, hopes in vain to receive a marriage proposal from Warren Sheffield.
Esther finally meets John properly when he is a guest at the Smiths' party and hopes to meet him again on a trolley ride to the construction site of the World's Fair.
On Halloween, Tootie and Agnes attend a bonfire. Later, after Tootie appears with a split lip and lost tooth, she claims that John tried to kill her. Esther confronts John, physically attacking and scolding him. After Esther returns, Tootie and Agnes confess the truth: John was trying to protect them from the police after a dangerous prank went wrong. Upon learning the truth, Esther apologizes to John and he kisses her.
Mr. Smith announces that he is to be sent to New York City on business and they will all move there after Christmas. The family is devastated by the news, especially Rose and Esther, whose romances, friendships and educational plans are threatened. Esther is also aghast because they will miss the World's Fair. Although Mrs. Smith is also upset, she reconciles with her husband and they sing a tender duet at the piano.
Margaret O'Brien and Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis
An elegant ball takes place on Christmas Eve. John cannot take Esther because he was too late to pick up his tuxedo. Esther is relieved when her grandfather offers to take her to the ball instead. At the ball, Esther and Rose plot to ruin the evening of Warren's date Lucille Ballard by filling her dance card with losers. They are surprised to find that Lucille is warm, friendly, and not a snob. She suggests that Warren should be with Rose, allowing her to be with Lon. Esther switches her dance card with Lucille's and takes on the clumsy and awkward partners. After being rescued by Grandpa, Esther is overjoyed when John appears in a tuxedo and they dance for the rest of the evening. Later, John proposes to Esther and she accepts, but their future is uncertain because she must still move to New York.
Esther returns home to find Tootie waiting impatiently for Santa Claus and worrying about whether she can bring all her toys with her to New York. After Esther sings Tootie a poignant rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", an inconsolable Tootie destroys the snowmen that they must leave behind. Esther reassures Tootie that they will be together no matter where they go. Mr. Smith, who has witnessed the girls outside, begins to have second thoughts. After thinking in the living room, he summons the family downstairs and announces that they will not move to New York, much to everyone's surprise and joy. Warren rushes into the Smith home, declares his love for Rose, and announces that they will marry at the first possible opportunity. Realizing that it is now Christmas, the Smiths celebrate.
The next spring, at the World's Fair, the family gathers overlooking the Grand Lagoon just as thousands of lights around the grand pavilion are illuminated.
The film is based on "The Kensington Stories", a series of sentimental family stories by Sally Benson that appeared in The New Yorker in 1942 and later in novel form as Meet Me in St. Louis. Shortly after the publication of the stories, Arthur Freed, who had enjoyed previous success with Judy Garland in MGM musicals, convinced studio head Louis B. Mayer to purchase the film rights for $25,000, and Benson was also hired to work on the screen adaptation. The idea for the film was also inspired by Life with Father, a nostalgic family play that had been running on Broadway to great success and acclaim since 1939.[6]
While Freed and his writers developed the script, director Vincente Minnelli, whose background was in set and costume design, prepared the film's design. Minnelli worked with designer Lemuel Ayers on set design and with art director E. Preston Ames to capture the evocative quality of paintings by Thomas Eakins, a popular artist and illustrator at the time in which the story takes place.[6]
A staff of six writers worked with Benson to capture the essence of her stories, including Doris Gilbert, who had worked with Benson previously. Freed hired the husband-and-wife team of Victor Heerman and Sarah Mason in mid-1942 to add an element of intrigue to the script. They introduced a blackmail plot involving Esther Smith, which Freed found inappropriate, so he tasked staff writer William Ludwig, a specialist in adolescent romance, to excise the blackmail plot and weave courtship stories into the screenplay. By February 1943, Freed was satisfied with Ludwig's script and distributed copies around MGM and to the principal cast members. However, Garland was dissatisfied with the script, feeling its plot to be weak and her character too juvenile. Mayer agreed, and Freed brought in a pair of writers to revise Ludwig's script who added the storyline of the family's looming move to New York. Freed liked the changes but Garland remained unhappy with the script.[6]
Freed's conflict with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Garland's lover who was developing what would become The Pirate with Garland in mind for the lead role, nearly caused Meet Me in St. Louis to be indefinitely postponed. The situation was resolved when Mankiewicz left MGM for Fox, and Freed's project was given the green light with a preliminary budget of $1,395,000 and plans to begin production in early October 1943. However, production was delayed because of studio problems and Technicolor Inc.'s heavy schedule, and the project finally entered production on December 7, 1943, with shooting scheduled for 58 days and a budget that had increased to $1,500,000. Nearly half of the film's budget was devoted to sets ($497,000) and music ($234,000). Story and continuity costs exceeded $132,000 because of the numerous rewrites. Garland was paid $2,500 per week, Margaret O'Brien $250 per week and Minnelli $1,000 per week while producing the film.[6]
Garland, unhappy with the script and unsure of herself as a leading lady, also suffered severe emotional problems, an acute addiction to amphetamines and numerous physical ailments such as recurring migraine headaches. Production reports show that she disrupted the schedule with fits of hysteria, habitual lateness and occasional absences, missing an entire week of shooting because of what she claimed to be an ear infection. Garland also balked at Minnelli's heavy schedule of rehearsals and prerecording sessions in the months preceding filming, but Minnelli won her confidence and the two became lovers, cohabiting by the time of the film's post-production and marrying soon after its release.[6] Earlier in the production, Garland had a brief affair with her costar Tom Drake.[9]
Production delays were also caused by illnesses suffered by O'Brien, Mary Astor (pneumonia) and Joan Carroll (appendicitis), but Minnelli used the delays to prepare O'Brien's most demanding and important scenes. Severe rains and flooding in the Los Angeles region caused further delays in the production of exterior scenes. Filming began on December 1, 1943, and was completed on April 7, 1944, behind schedule and with a final budget near $1.8 million. The first rough cut exceeded two hours in length, so the writers suggested edits that brought the film down to 113 minutes for its preview screenings in the summer of 1944. MGM, encouraged by overwhelmingly positive audience previews, held the film's release for the Christmas season.[6]
Minnelli's idea to introduce each season segment with a greeting-card illustration dissolving into live action was most likely influenced by a similar technique used in Orson Welles' 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons.[6]
Freed's process for Meet Me in St. Louis established a pattern for Minnelli's future musicals: budgets in excess of $1 million, preproduction schedules sometimes exceeding a full year, shooting schedules of three to six months and postproduction phases of six months or longer.[6]
The musical score for the film was adapted by Roger Edens, who also served as an uncredited associate producer. Georgie Stoll conducted the orchestrations of Conrad Salinger. Some of the songs in the film are from around the time of the St. Louis Exposition, and others were written for the film.
"I Was Drunk Last Night," performed by Margaret O'Brien.
"Under the Bamboo Tree," words and music by Robert Cole and the Johnson Bros., 1902, performed by Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien.
"Over the Banister," 19th-century melody adapted by Conrad Salinger, lyrics from the 1888 poem "Over the Banisters" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, adapted by Roger Edens (1944), performed by Judy Garland.
"The Trolley Song", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Chorus and Judy Garland.
"You and I," Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, sung by Freed, the film's producer, and Denny Markas (the young woman in blue on the trolley, as seen in one of the pictures below), voices dubbed for Leon Ames and Mary Astor.
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Judy Garland. The song's lyrics were originally different. Lyricist Hugh Martin's opening lyrics were deemed too depressing by Judy Garland, Tom Drake, and Vincente Minnelli, and Martin changed them. The lyrics originally were: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past." Years after the film's release, additional lyric changes were made for Frank Sinatra, who objected to the song's generally downbeat tone.
Garland's prerecording of "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" survives, but the cut film footage has been lost. This song was originally composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein for their Broadway musical Cinderella, but was cut prior to its opening.[10][11]
The premiere was held in St. Louis on November 22, 1944, and at New York's Astor Theatre one week later.[6] MGM held its general release for the Christmas season due to overwhelmingly positive audience previews. It became MGM's second most profitable film after Gone with the Wind and solidified the studio's reputation for high-quality musicals.
The film aired on the Lux Radio Theatre in December 1946, with Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien reprising their roles. In 1959, CBS aired a television version featuring a new cast, including Jane Powell and Tab Hunter. A pilot for a TV series adaptation was filmed in 1966 but was not picked up for further production.
Meet Me in St. Louis has had several home media releases over the decades, reflecting its enduring legacy in popular culture. The film was first released on VHS and LaserDisc by MGM/UA Home Video in 1989, offering improved audio and video quality of the LaserDisc release compared to VHS.
In 2004, Warner Home Video issued a two-disc DVD set to celebrate the film's 60th anniversary. This edition featured a restored version of the film along with audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and other supplementary materials. A Blu-ray edition was released in 2011 by Warner Home Video. This release included many bonus features from the 2004 DVD. In 2023, the Warner Archive Collection introduced an updated Blu-ray version, further enhancing the picture and sound quality to modern standards.
Upon its 1944 release, Meet Me in St. Louis was a gigantic critical and commercial success. During its initial theatrical release, it earned a then-massive $5,016,000 in the US and Canada and $1,550,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $2,359,000.[2]
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film "warm and beguiling" and wrote: "Let those who would savor their enjoyment of innocent family merriment with the fragrance of dried-rose petals and who would revel in girlish rhapsodies make a bee-line right down to the Astor. For there's honey to be had inside. ... In the words of one of the gentlemen, it is a ginger-peachy show."[12]
Time called Meet Me in St. Louis "one of the year's prettiest pictures" and noted: "Technicolor has seldom been more affectionately used than in its registrations of the sober mahoganies and tender muslins and benign gaslights of the period. Now & then, too, the film gets well beyond the charm of mere tableau for short flights in the empyrean of genuine domestic poetry. These triumphs are creditable mainly to the intensity and grace of Margaret O'Brien and to the ability of director Minnelli & Co. to get the best out of her."[13] O'Brien drew further praise from Time: "[Her] song and her cakewalk done in a nightgown at a grown-up party, are entrancing acts. Her self-terrified Halloween adventures richly set against firelight, dark streets, and the rusty confabulations of fallen leaves, bring this section of the film very near the first-rate."
Writing in The New Yorker, Wolcott Gibbs praised the film as "extremely attractive" and called the dialogue "funny in a sense rather rare in the movies," although he felt that the film was too long.[14]
In 2005, Richard Schickel included the film in Time.com's list of the 100 best films, saying: "It had wonderful songs [and] a sweetly unneurotic performance by Judy Garland....Despite its nostalgic charm, Minnelli infused the piece with a dreamy, occasionally surreal, darkness and it remains, for some of us, the greatest of American movie musicals."[15] Film historian Karina Longworth also noted its fantastical and surreal elements, calling it "a gothicart film in disguise as a standard Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical".[16]
Producer Arthur Freed remarked: "Meet Me in St. Louis is my personal favorite. I got along wonderfully with Judy, but the only time we were ever on the outs was when we did this film. She didn't want to do the picture. Even her mother came to me about it. We bumped into some trouble with some opinions – Eddie Mannix, the studio manager, thought the Halloween sequence was wrong, but it was left in. There was a song that Rodgers and Hammerstein had written, called Boys and Girls Like You and Me, that Judy did wonderfully, but it slowed up the picture and it was cut out. After the preview of the completed film, Judy came over to me and said, 'Arthur, remind me not to tell you what kind of pictures to make.' [It] was the biggest grosser Metro had up to that time, except for Gone With the Wind."[17]
The film holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes based on 80 reviews with an average score of 8.80/10. The site's critics' consensus for the film reads: "A disarmingly sweet musical led by outstanding performances from Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien, Meet Me in St. Louis offers a holiday treat for all ages."[18]
Meet Me in St. Louis was remade again for television in 1966. This was a non-musical version starring Shelley Fabares, Celeste Holm, Larry Merrill, Judy Land, Reta Shaw, Tammy Locke and Morgan Brittany. It was directed by Alan D. Courtney from a script written by Sally Benson and was intended as a pilot for a television series that failed to materialize. It was later included as a special feature on the two-disc DVD set released in 2004.
A Broadway musical based on the film was produced in 1989, with additional songs.
The late-19th century vintage carousel in the film was located at the Boblo Island Amusement Park in Amherstburg, Ontario until the park closed in September 1993. It was dismantled and sold to private collectors.
The Smith family's former house at 5135 Kensington Avenue in St. Louis[27] no longer exists. After being sold, it fell into disrepair, eventually became uninhabitable, and was demolished in 1994.[28] The backlot house used as the exterior of the Smiths' family home later was used in the film Cheaper by the Dozen as the Gilbreths' family home.[citation needed]
The film's snowmen scene was parodied in the December 16, 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live, with comedians Chloe Troast and Kate McKinnon playing the characters of Esther Smith and Tootie Smith, respectively.[30]
In the 2023 film A Haunting in Venice, characters Nicholas and Desdemona recount their days travelling with soldiers watching the first half of this film every night.
^ Jump up to:abcdefghijSchatz, Thomas (1989). The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN0805046666.
^Crowther, Bosley (November 29, 1944). "The Screen: 'Meet Me in St. Louis,' a Period Film That Has Charm, With Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien, Opens at the Astor". The New York Times. p. 20.
Meet Me in St. Louis essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN0826429777, pages 377-379
USA, 113 minutes
