Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) [Re-UP]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: Oct. 20, 2015

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 4:3 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:48:16 | 6,57 Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 5.1 @ 384 Kbps; #2 German, #3 Spanish - AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps (each)
Subs (18): Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (+SDH), Finnish, French, German (+SDH),
Greek, Hungarian, Italian (+SDH), Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish
Genre: Family, Romance

Director: Vincente Minnelli
Stars: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor

St. Louis 1903. The well-off Smith family has four beautiful daughters, including Esther and little Tootie. 17-year old Esther has fallen in love with the boy next door who has just moved in, John. He however barely notices her at first. The family is shocked when Mr. Smith reveals that he has been transfered to a nice position in New York, which means that the family has to leave St. Louis and the St. Louis Fair.

IMDB - Nominated for 4 Oscars | Wikipedia | Rotten Tomatoes | TCM

It is the hot summer of 1903 and the Smith family are as content as they will ever be, with mother Anna (Mary Astor) and Katie the maid (Marjorie Main) making tomato soup, daughter Agnes (Joan Carroll), one of five children, back from swimming, and Esther (Judy Garland) returning home from tennis. She has a scheme to ensure that her older sister Rose (Lucille Bremer) will have the telephone to herself when the man she wants to propose to her calls, so asks Katie to arrange dinner for one hour earlier than usual, mainly so father (Leon Ames) cannot do anything to spoil the occasion. But the best laid plans and all that…


On the surface, Meet Me in St. Louis was a simple, episodic item of nostalgia for days gone by, but that would not entirely explain why it was one of the biggest successes of its year. There was a good reason that most of America, of the world in fact, were looking back to what they perceived as happier times, because it was exactly the tonic they needed with the world war raging at the time. This is a sweet film, true, but there is always an underlying threat that the family's peace will be disrupted, even ruined, a theme that makes itself more apparent in the second half. Before that, the idyllic life the Smiths enjoy is not as rosy as they would like to believe.


Mostly, until that major plot point, we can look at them and think as the wartime audiences did, ah, what did they know? Esther regards the fact the new boy next door, John Truett (Tom Drake), is showing no interest in her is likely to upset her potential joy, as we see when she sings about him, but we understand this is youthful folly and she will turn out fine. Besides, although it does turn out all right for her, you would be forgiven for musing that John wasn't really up to her standards - what can you say about a boy whose idea of a compliment is "You've got a mighty strong grip for a girl!"? Yet while this does reach a beneficial conclusion for everyone, we are in the privileged position of being well aware the future is none too bright.


This means Meet Me in St. Louis fairly aches with poignancy, and goes some way to illustrating why the wartime public flocked to it. As far as story goes, considering it was based on anecdotes about a genuine growing up in the early twentieth century, director Vincente Minnelli managed to make something cohesive out of what could have been strictly stop-start as far as forward momentum went. The original reminiscences were by Sally Benson, who is played in the film by Margaret O'Brien as the morbid five-year-old Tootie; O'Brien was a legendarily precocious child star, and this is the role she is best remembered for probably because not only is her performance supernaturally good, but because it is Tootie who we see the emotional disruption in most keenly.


So what does happen? Well, after an hour of quaint tales, where Esther wins the heart of John and Tootie goes out on Halloween (a vividly nightmarish sequence with an off kilter and anarchic tone about it), father announces he has been awarded a promotion and everyone is to leave for New York just after Christmas. Although most of them manage to compose themselves for most of the time, the Smiths are appalled at the news, summed up by the fact they'll miss the World's Fair in the spring, and it is with a heavy heart they settle down to their final Yuletide amongst the surroundings and people they love. This leads to the famous Christmas Eve section, where Esther goes to the ball with her sisters and brother, dances with John, and it's all perfect except that she has to go home and admit to Tootie that nothing will ever be the same again. Garland's rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in that scene would melt a heart of stone, and one of the most bittersweet and melancholy in Hollywood history; there is a happy ending, but if you've ever feared for the future, this film cannot fail to strike a chord.
The Spinning Image

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) - Vincente Minnelli's timeless classic is like an old friend you only see occasionally. Within five minutes of meeting again you remember why you love them so much, as they take you back nostalgically to a time when everything seemed so much better.

The film traces the ups and downs of the four daughters of the Smith family from St Louis - the burgeoning love lives of the two elder girls Rose (Lucille Bremer) and Esther (Judy Garland), and the predicaments their two younger sisters Agnes (Joan Carroll) and 'Tootie' (Margaret O'Brien) constantly find themselves in - as the story follows the seasons of the year in the lead up to the 1904 World's Fair. When their father Alonzo (Leon Ames) decides to take up the offer of a job in New York, his family's reaction to the news makes him think again, and focus on what's really important in life.


Meet Me in St. Louis, made when Garland was still on a career high from the phenomenal success of 1939's The Wizard of Oz, despite being a product of its time still manages to feel as fresh as when it first aired over sixty years ago.


Though clearly no expense was spared - the film cost over $1.7 million to make (which was hardly skimping it in 1944) - and whilst George J. Folsey's cinematography and the vibrancy of the film's Technicolour makes the costumes and scenery jump from the screen in an almost artificial way, it works as a whole because of its strong storyline of family values that transcends time and which we all like to think we still believe in deep down, especially at this time of year.


The production, however, really belongs to two of its stars. Garland, with the famous Trolley Song (which she reputedly did in one take), and O'Brien (who was given a special child Oscar for her performance) exude an effortless confidence which lights up the screen, reducing the rest of the cast to mere bystanders.


Made just as the world was emerging from a devastating war and still had many years of austerity ahead Meet Me in St. Louis, with songs like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - the film's most famous and achingly sentimental ballad - gave audiences the hope that tomorrow would be better and all their troubles would "seem faraway".
CineVue

Special Features:
- Audio commentary by Garland biographer John Fricke, with actress Margaret O’Brien, co-writer Irving Brecher, songwriter Hugh Martin and daughter of producer Arthur Freed, Barbara Freed-Saltzman
- An introduction by Liza Minnelli (4:58)
- Music-only isolated soundtrack (DD 5.0)
- "Meet Me In St. Louis: The Making Of An American Classic" documentary (30:35)
- "Skip To My Lou" a rare 1941 "soundie" short feature (3:11)
- Theatrical trailer (1955 re-issue)

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