Meet Me in St. Louis

This article is about the 1944 film. For other uses, see Meet Me in St. Louis (disambiguation).

Meet Me in St. Louis
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Vincente Minnelli
Produced by	Arthur Freed
Screenplay by	Irving Brecher Fred F. Finklehoffe
Story by	Sally Benson
Starring	Judy Garland Margaret O'Brien Mary Astor Lucille Bremer Tom Drake Marjorie Main
Cinematography	George J. Folsey
Editing by	Albert Akst
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	November 28, 1944 (1944-11-28)
Running time	113 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904.^[1][2] It stars Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, June Lockhart, and Joan Carroll.

The movie was adapted by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe from a series of short stories by Sally Benson, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, and later in the novel 5135 Kensington. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who met Garland, on the set, and later married her. It was the second-highest grossing picture of the year, only behind Going My Way.^{[citation needed]}

Garland debuted the standards "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", which both became hits after the film was released. Arthur Freed, the producer of the film, also wrote and performed one of the songs.

Plot

The backdrop for Meet Me in St. Louis is St. Louis, Missouri on the brink of the 1904 World's Fair.

The Smith family lead a comfortable middle-class life. Mr. Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames) and Mrs. Anna Smith (Mary Astor) have four daughters: Rose (Lucille Bremer), Esther, Agnes, and Tootie; and a son, Lon Jr. (Henry H. Daniels, Jr.) Esther, the second eldest daughter (Judy Garland), is in love with the boy next door, John Truitt (Tom Drake), although he does not notice her at first. Rose is expecting a phone call in which she hopes to be proposed to by Warren Sheffield (Robert Sully).

Esther finally gets to meet John properly when he is a guest at the Smiths' house party, although her chances of romancing him don't go to plan when, after all the guests are gone and he is helping her turn off the gas lamps throughout the house, he tells her she uses the same perfume as his grandmother and that she has "a mighty strong grip for a girl".

On Halloween, Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) returns home injured, claiming that John Truitt attacked her. Without bothering to investigate, Esther confronts John, physically attacking him and scolding him for being a "bully". When Esther returns home, Tootie confesses that what really happened was that John was trying to protect Tootie and Agnes (Joan Carroll) from the police after a dangerous prank they pulled went wrong. Upon learning the truth, Esther immediately dashes to John's house next door to apologize, and they share their first kiss.

Mr. Smith announces to the family that he is to be sent to New York on business and eventually they will all move. The family is devastated and upset at the news of the move, especially Rose and Esther whose romances, friendships, and educational plans are threatened. Esther is also aghast because they will miss the World's Fair.

An elegant ball takes place on Christmas Eve. Esther is devastated when John cannot take her as his date, due to his leaving his tuxedo at the tailor's and being unable to get it back. But she is relieved when her grandfather (Harry Davenport) offers to take her instead. At the ball, Esther fills up a visiting girl's (Lucille Ballard, played by June Lockhart) dance card with losers because she thinks Lucille is a rival of Rose's. But when Lucille turns out to be interested in Lon, Esther switches her dance card with Lucille's and instead dances herself with the clumsy and awkward partners. After being rescued by Grandpa, she is overwhelmed when John unexpectedly turns up after somehow managing to obtain a tuxedo, and the pair dance together for the rest of the evening. Later on, John proposes to Esther and she accepts.

Esther returns home to an upset Tootie. She sings her "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Tootie, however, does become more upset at the prospect of the family's move and runs downstairs, out into the cold to destroy the snowmen they have made. Mr. Smith sees his daughter's upsetting outburst from an upstairs window.

Mr. Smith later announces that the family will not leave St. Louis after all when he realises how much the move will affect his family. Warren declares his love for Rose, stating that they will marry at the first possible opportunity. And all of the family finally are able to attend the World's Fair.

The film ends at night with the entire family (including boyfriends-to-turn-into-presumed-husbands and Lon's new love interest) overlooking the fresh new lake at the center of the World's Fair just as the lights come up on the entire fair.

Cast

• Judy Garland as Esther Smith
• Margaret O'Brien as "Tootie" Smith
• Mary Astor as Mrs. Anna Smith
• Lucille Bremer as Rose Smith
• Tom Drake as John Truitt
• Marjorie Main as Katie the maid
• Leon Ames as Mr. Alonzo Smith
• Harry Davenport as Grandpa
• June Lockhart as Lucille Ballard
• Henry H. Daniels Jr. as Alonzo "Lon" Smith Jr.
• Joan Carroll as Agnes Smith
• Hugh Marlowe as Colonel Darly
• Robert Sully as Warren Sheffield
• Chill Wills as Mr. Neely

Music

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. Others were written for the movie.

• "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" Kerry Mills and Andrew B. Sterling, 1904
• "The Boy Next Door", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Judy Garland.
• "Skip to My Lou", Traditional, with section sung to the tunes of "Yankee Doodle" arranged by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944
• "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 Arthur Freed and D. Markas, mimed by the actors.
• "Goodbye, My Lady Love," (Instrumental), Joseph E. Howard, 1904.
• "Little Brown Jug", (Instrumental), Joseph Winner, 1869.
• "Down at the Old Bull and Bush," (Instrumental), Harry von Tilzer, 1903.
• "Home! Sweet Home!", (Instrumental), Henry Bishop, 1823/1852.
• "Auld Lang Syne", (Instrumental)
• "The First Noel", (Instrumental)
• "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944, performed by Judy Garland.

Reception

Upon its 1944 release, Time called it "one of the year's prettiest pictures"; "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 Minelli & Co. to get the best out of her."^[3] The film is a New York Times Critics' Pick: after seeing it at the Astor Theatre, Bosley Crowther called it a "a warm and beguiling picturization based on Sally Benson's memoirs of her folks."^[4] Crowther concludes: "As a comparable screen companion to Life With Father, we would confidently predict that Meet Me in St. Louis has a future that is equally bright. In the words of one of the gentlemen, it is a ginger-peachy show."

In 2005, Richard Schickel included the film on Time.com's ALL-TIME 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."^[5]

Accolades

The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Music, Song (Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin for "The Trolley Song") and Best Writing, Screenplay. Margaret O'Brien received an Academy Juvenile Award for her work that year, in which she appeared in several movies along with Meet Me in St. Louis.

In 1994, the film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

The American Film Institute ranked the film 10th on AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals; two songs from the film made AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs ("The Trolley Song" at #26 and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" at #76).

Trivia

• Judy Garland at first refused to appear in the film because she felt she had played too many childish roles and wanted to play an adult.^{[citation needed]} She was also afraid that Margaret O'Brien would steal the film. After a talk with Vincente Minnelli, Garland finally agreed to play the role of Esther Smith. Later, she considered the role her favorite among her films.

• The lyrics for "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" were originally different. The lyricist, Hugh Martin, wrote lyrics which referred to the soldiers fighting during World War Two. Judy Garland thought the song as written was too mean to sing to Margaret O'Brien, so he changed the lyrics. Further revisions were made when Frank Sinatra objected to the generally downbeat tone of the piece. The revised version is the one most commonly performed.

• Producer Arthur Freed, fearing the movie was running too long, originally wanted to delete the Halloween sequence during the second act of the film.^{[citation needed]} His reasoning for cutting the scene was based on the fact that it was an entity in itself and could be excised from the film without much difficulty. However, after showing the film to test audience reaction in previews, it was found that audiences loved the scene. So Freed was forced to look elsewhere for a scene to cut, ultimately deciding to cut one of Judy Garland's musical numbers.

• The musical number deleted from the film was a song called Boys and Girls Like You and Me, which was sung by Judy Garland's character (Esther Smith) to Tom Drake's character (John Truitt), just after the trolley number, as Esther and John tour the grounds of the World's Fair, still under construction. The cut scene has supposedly been lost, except for a glimpse of it during the film's theatrical trailer. In the final act of the film, as the Smith family attends the opening of the World's Fair, John makes a joking and seemingly out-of-place comment to Esther about preferring the fair ground "when it was still a swamp". This line is a reference to their earlier encounter in the cut scene. The song was originally planned to appear in the stage musical Oklahoma before being cut from this. It was then planned for Meet Me in St. Louis before being cut. Next, the song was planned for Take me out to the Ball Game, however it was once more cut. The song was eventually used in the musical Cinderella, although it was not included in any of the broadcast versions.^[6][7] Garland's daughter, Liza Minelli, performed the song on the Tonight Show.^[8]

• Hugh Marlowe's character of Colonel Darby was originally given a larger role in early drafts of the script.^{[citation needed]} More scenes involving Esther and Rose Smith's pursuit of the older Darby were written, including one scene involving the sisters breaking into his hotel suite only to discover that he is married. Nevertheless, Arthur Freed felt the character was not necessary to the plot and his role was reduced to a small casual scene in which he innocently flirts with Rose Smith.

• The success of the film encouraged MGM to begin a sequel and make tentative plans for a series of technicolor films about the Smith family, much like the popular Andy Hardy series. The sequel, called Meet Me in Manhattan,^{[citation needed]} was apparently written chronicling the Smith family's eventual move to New York, which happened to Sally Benson's family in real life. The film was abandoned in its early stages.

Adaptations

• Meet Me in St. Louis was remade in 1959 for television, starring Jane Powell, Jeanne Crain, Patty Duke, Walter Pidgeon, Ed Wynn, Tab Hunter and Myrna Loy. It was directed by George Schaefer from the original Brecher and Finklehoffe screenplay.

• 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, Rita Shaw and Morgan Brittany. It was directed by Alan D. Courtney from a script written by Sally Benson herself. This was to be a pilot for a TV series, but no network picked it up.

• A Broadway musical based on the film was produced in 1989, with additional songs.

The late-19th century vintage carousel in this movie could be found at Bob-Lo Amusement Park in Amherstburg, Ontario until the park closed in September 1993. It was dismantled and sold to private collectors.

References

1. ^ Variety film review; November 1, 1944, page 10.
2. ^ Harrison's Reports film review; November 4, 1944, page 178.
3. ^ "The New Pictures". TIME. November 27, 1944. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,796926,00.html. Retrieved 2011-08-02. 
4. ^ Crowther, Bosley (November 29, 1944). "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. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=980DEFD8113DE13BBC4151DFB767838F659EDE. Retrieved 2011-08-02. 
5. ^ Schickel, Richard (February 12, 2005). "Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953094_1953145_1953756,00.html. Retrieved 2011-08-02. 
6. ^ Review of Cinderella at the Papermill Playhouse describing these additional songs
7. ^ Listing of cast albums that include the song
8. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FuZ8i8DOuk&playnext=1&list=PLBADE67DF8CD336A9&index=14

External links

• Meet Me in St. Louis at the Internet Movie Database
• Meet Me in St. Louis at the TCM Movie Database
• Meet Me in St. Louis at AllRovi
• Meet Me in St. Louis at Rotten Tomatoes
• Meet Me in St. Louis from TheJudyRoom.com
• Meet Me in St. Louis at Filmsite.org.
• Meet Me in St. Louis at the Museum of Modern Art.