Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I really don't understand a few people giving this film and Judy Garland such ugly reviews. Some people just hate anything old fashioned, I guess. This film is beautiful, and Judy Garland is gorgeous. Are a few people blind? And Judy's singing is absolutely wonderful. I must say though, that most reviews I've read, I've almost never seen anyone badmouth Judy, just on a couple reviews for this film. Other bad reviews I've read, people are usually picking at other things about Judy's films but are still saying they love Judy and her singing and they still think she's pretty. Anyway, enough about other reviewers. I think Judy is beyond pretty, she's beautiful and heavenly. And her singing is also beautiful and heavenly. I love old fashioned classics such as this film and Judy's other films. The wonderful songs in this film are "the trolley song", " the boy next door", "have yourself a merry little Christmas", and the title song. Judy and the other characters here are great including a very young Margerate O'Brien. This film and Judy are pure, sweet, wonderful, old fashioned, classic good cheer from Hollywood's golden age.

The movie covers four seasons between the summer of 1903 and the spring of 1904. Based upon the recollections of Sally Benson (who wrote for the "New Yorker," 1941-1942), the spotlight is on the upbeat lives of the upper middle class Smith family that, residing in a suburban St. Louis Edwardian house, includes patriarch Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames), wife Anna (Mary Astor), four daughters, an uneventful son (Henry H. Daniels, Jr.), a wisecracking grandpa (Harry Davenport), and even an imperturbable housekeeper, Katie (Marjorie Main). The main excitement is, of course, the announcement that St. Louis will host the 1904 World's Fair (Louisiana Exposition, the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase). The other story lines mostly focus on three of the Smith daughters. For two older girls (Esther and Rose) the emphasis is, of course, on romance. At dinnertime, twenty year-old Rose (Lucille Bremer) gets a long distance telephone call from her boyfriend in New York, waiting for a proposal that never comes. Seventeen year-old Esther (twenty-two year-old Judy Garland) falls in love with the boy next door, John Truett (Tom Drake). For the youngest girl, Tootie (Margaret O'Brien), a little terror, the focal point is on mischief, especially on Halloween. But the biggest threat of the happy existence of the family is the announcement of the patriarch, a successful attorney, after he arrives home from work on Halloween evening. Mr. Smith notifies his family that he will accept a job promotion to New York City effective January 1904. Uprooting the family's comfortable existence will shatter everyone's dreams as the Smiths are intrinsically linked to St. Louis, the heart of Midwest America. Expertly directed by Vincente Minnelli, "Meet Me in St. Louis" is one of the most beautiful musicals ever created, despite its formulaic storyline (not unusual among musicals anyway). Minnelli's eye for period detail is stunning. There are the impeccable sets (like the colorful rooms in the Smith house and the electrical lighting of the Fair), music score, early twentieth century costumes, and first-rate artistic performances. In particular, dark-eyed and auburn-haired Judy Garland danced, sang, and looked as well as she ever did. Charming with old-time innocence, the film's musical scores are almost beyond comparison ("The Trolley Song," "Skip to My Lou," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," etc.). Note how deftly Director Minnelli handles the change from scene to song back to scene without skipping a beat. In fact, the songs are integrated with the storyline. Minnelli loved gorgeous color, especially red motifs. Note the shiny red automobile at the very beginning, reddish wallpaper, the family room table lamp, grandpa's fez, the hall bench seat across from the upstairs bathroom, the milk pitcher, the small rose wall picture, and the homemade ketchup. Then there are Judy Garland's winter dress and ruby red lipstick. Color red is also prominent in the four framed prints – sepia photographs that come alive in color – that herald each season. Each frame has its own character and does remind one of the Americana of Courier and Ives. The arrangement was probably copied five years later by Mervyn LeRoy in his "Little Women." As the coming-of-age members react to each predicament, there is that undertone of adieus that will change the family forever. Then there is that hint of a complex world (the Exposition itself) descending around the Smiths that foretell the end of the simple ways of the good old days (the period before World War I). But for the next few months the Smith family will be at its peak and the changes will be slight. It is the World's Fair that will garner attention. After all, as Esther remarks at the end, "I can't believe it, right here where we live, right here in St. Louis."

If you want a five letter word for "the perfect musical", here is your title, a film so sentimental yet true to the human desire for home and roots that even today it remains fresh and alive, colorful and magnetic in every way. Of course, it will always be remembered as the film which first paired Judy Garland and director Vincent Minnelli (although he was the one responsible for the "Our Love Affair" fruit/cake orchestra in "Strike Up the Band!") and the film which moved her from black and white ingénue into one of MGM's most photographic Technicolor ladies. It will also be remembered as the film which moved rising child star Margaret O'Brien into the realm of Judy's past as MGM's greatest young actress and for the many beautiful songs which were written for it in its translation onto the screen. There's even the unfortunately short-lived but much loved 1990 Broadway musical version of it which had been trailing around as a touring production for years before being perfected for the Great White Way. A T.V. series was also developed years later when MGM moved into that medium, but nothing can top the wedding cake of perfection that is this salute to the early part of the 20th Century when state fairs (like one perfected in song by Rodgers and Hammerstein the following year) were must-visit attractions and "courting" was the way young lovers romanced each other-by gaslight!From the moment that Judy pokes her head out the window to sing her love of "The Boy Next Door", you know that her future as a maturing leading lady looks brighter than ever. Gone are the Mickey Rooney "Let's put on a show!" films, and even if she does put on a show here (in an impromptu duet with Ms. O'Brien), it's much more believable, as it is part of a house party where Judy does more than her share of trying to catch the eye of that particular boy, played here by the handsome Tom Drake. Her parents are played by Leon Ames and Mary Astor, and if it is at first jarring to see the vixen of "The Maltese Falcon" playing a house frau, just remember that she had played Judy's mother once before: in "Listen, Darling!"."Older sister" Lucille Bremer was Arthur Freed's big attempt to create a new leading lady, and while she's a likable young actress, she seems lost when shown on screen with the magnetic Judy and the perky Margaret. Then, there's the beloved "grandpa", played by that old rascal, Harry Davenport, and the family's cranky but lively maid, Marjorie Main, who dominates the kitchen (and her ketchup recipe) much like Mary Wickes would do almost a decade later in two Booth Tarkington similar stories, "On Moonlight Bay" and "By the Light of the Silvery Moon". Ironically, in the big Broadway musical, another MGM leading lady of the 1940's, Betty Garrett, would assume that part, stealing every moment she was on screen.The story is a simple one: Papa Ames wants to move the family from St. Louis to New York and their desire is to remain there for the upcoming world's fair. O'Brien goes homicidal, burying her dolls and killing the snowmen, which leads to a comforting scene where Judy serenades the sobbing girl with "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". It should be noted that the original lyrics of that Christmas standard were much darker than what was heard on screen, yet perfectly in tuned with the sometimes darkened theme of the story. Such is the case with the Halloween sequence where O'Brien must "assassinate" the town grouch by pelting him with flour. You wouldn't see anything like this in a Greer Garson movie!Once Judy steps onto a streetcar for the famous "Trolley Song", you've got the stuff that show business legends are made of. The team of Arthur Freed and Vincent Minnelli produced and directed some of Judy's finest works, and Minnelli proves that he is an artist in every way, making the film look as if it was taken right out of Currier and Ives. There's a big rousing version of "Skip to My Lou!" (which features a young June Lockhart amongst its dancers) and a sweet duet between Ames and Astor who re-establish their own love as they watch their growing children discover their first.While the World's Fair sequence is only briefly presented in the finale, it is the dramatic story leading up to it which makes this magical in every way. Simple times, maybe never as simple as this presents, yet still lovely, and something many audiences yearn for today, just like Judy sang with "Over the Rainbow". Sumstuous costumes, lavish sets and rousing songs make this a delight from start to finish which the newer generations have brought into their hearts and cherished to make a family tradition for decades to come, and hopefully much longer.

I saw this film on my mother's recommendation, and my mother's recommendations are usually quite good. Not this time. Feh! This was a lousy movie. Allow me to proudly stand with the elite minority who see this film as dreck.There's so much wrong with it, I hardly know where to start. The plot, if you can even call it that, is so paper thin and obvious as to be a joke. The *instant* that the father announces the move to New York, it is transparent exactly what's going to happen with that. I'm not one to try to out-think a movie while I'm watching it, I seldom pre-figure-out what's going to happen. But in this case, before the father was even done explaining the move, it was painfully obvious that the family would get all weepy about it and eventually he would relent. It was hardly even worth the trouble of going through the motions of carrying out that bit of "story".All the machinations with the two sisters' romances are ridiculous, because these women are *so* concerned about winning the affections of these absolute *nothings*. I mean the male romantic objects are so bland, lifeless, ordinary, it's absolutely impossible to see what these women see in them. One of them has so little function in the movie he's more of a prop than a character. The other is, frankly, a wuss. That may be the worse romance, because Judy Garland's character is clearly made out to be the belle of the ball, who can get pretty much any man around that she wants. And yet all she wants is that nebish next door. Feh, and feh again!As a musical, I didn't find it particularly strong. For the most part, I found the songs ordinary and unmemorable. The title song is OK, I guess, if rather insipid. The only song I really liked was the rather famous one about the trolley, and even that one failed to score a bullseye, as I found it extremely odd to discover how much the lyrics of the song fail to line up with what's actually going on in the movie at the time. It comes off as rather slap- dash film-making.About the only place I can bestow praise is upon the performance of Margaret O'Brien. She certainly does a good job with the role she has, even if that role is a little disturbing.Even the movie's denouement comes off as weak. After all that build up and brouhaha about the amazing world's fair, when they actually get to it, it's pretty anticlimactic. We don't get to see much of anything so wonderful about the fair, yet we see the characters reacting with absolute rapture.