MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
Meet Me In St Louis tells the story of a turn-of-the-century family in suburban, Midwestern St. Louis of 1903, who live in a stylish Edwardian home at 5135 Kensington Avenue. The city, and the well-to-do Smith family (with four beautiful daughters), is on the verge of hosting (and celebrating) the arrival of the spectacular 1904 World's Fair. However, the family's head of the house is beckoned to New York due to a job promotion - an uprooting move that threatens to indelibly change the lives of the family members forever. Filmed during WWII, the decision to remain in St. Louis in the film's conclusion affirmed that nothing will be altered for the American family.
This one time art director at New York's Radio City Music Hall is remembered as one of American cinema's most distinctive and creative visual stylists. His lavish use of color and, in the 1950s, widescreen, was praised by French critics who deemed him a master of "mise-en-scène." A generation of younger American filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese (whose 1977New York, New York starring Vincente and Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli, contains many touches in homage to Minnelli) has cited him as one of his major influences. His best-known screen work was done in the musical genre, where he also worked as a stage director before going to Hollywood. He started out as a troubleshooter/jack-of-all trades at MGM, contributing ideas to a number of different films before "flying solo" as a director.
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, Vincente Minnelli kept lying over the years about his age and his exact origin. His father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater and his only child to survive infancy spent his childhood on the road. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, he worked at the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by the Music Hall, then at Radio City. Fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Schubert revue, “At Home Abroad”, the first of three, in the best Ziegfeld spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to join the MGM - not mentioning a first short unsuccessful contract at Paramount. He would not leave the MGM lots for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Rooney-Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on _”Cabin in the Sky” , a risky screen project with an all-black cast, which he followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945.
This most popular and financially-successful film was produced by Arthur Freed. The slice-of-life musical was only Minnelli's third film and his first full-length film in color. After their marriage, Garland and Minnelli also worked together on The Clock ) and The Pirate). Structurally, the film is a series of coming-of-age vignettes: different acts representing the seasons from summer 1903 to spring 1904 that conclude in the year of the St. Louis World's Fair/Exposition. Each segment marks changes and rites of passage - and is introduced by a filigreed tintype from the Smith family album - each static, initially sepia-toned image turns into color and comes to life. Although the Winter segment is one of the shortest vignettes, the film is still considered a favorite Christmas movie.
Here’s the trailer. Notice the eye for detail Minnelli brings.
This is a peerless portrayal of America at the turn of the century and one family's struggles to deal with progress, symbolized by the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis (beautifully re-created for the film). Minnelli proves his eye for detail and captures the era and its values in richly colored, gentle images, displaying a startling balance of emotions from scene to scene, and song to song.
Vincent’s obvious affection for Garland is apparent in almost every scene. She is lit through the eyes of a man in love. Judy’s never been more beautiful.
Minnelli also uses the camera like a paintbrush. Every frame of this film is priceless and meticulous. Notice how when the seasons change as the film progresses, each new introduction has a different flavor. You can actually feel the wind blow in autumn, and when winter comes and the Christmas zeal is in the air, Minnelli is at his best. Consider the scene at the Ball when Grandpa is dancing with Esther and then waltzes her behind the tree trading places with John Truitt. The camera zooms out to a wide shot and covers not only the main characters, but the tree, the window behind it, and the falling snow.
Vincent also uses the art of mirrors throughout this film. There is reflection scattered about from beginning to end. Grandpa in the mirror at the very top, Esther and Rose primping for the dance, and then a very small moment when Mom and Dad are singing to the family. If you look closely, there’s a tiny hand held mirror on the top of the piano, and as the couple sing their duets in order to not only heal themselves, but to heal the family as well, they are met with their own lives singing back at them,
Part of Minnelli’s brilliance was his ability to assign unconscious illuminations within the context of an overly zealous and sometimes saccharine piece of entertainment. Probably the reason it is considered a classic, and is still considered one of the greatest musicals ever.
As a pigtailed waif with expressive brown eyes, this child star proved capable of delivering more naturalistic performances than most movie moppets, and for a few brief years was a genuine screen favorite. O'Brien, a model at age three, made her screen debut in Babes on Broadway (although she was billed as Maxine O'Brien), but first struck moviegoers as a diminutive scene-stealer in Journey for Margaret . She subsequently appeared in Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case and Lost Angel and was featured in MGM's all-star Technicolor musical Thousands Cheer . But it was the role of "Tootie" Smith, irrepressible kid sister to Judy Garland in the lavish period piece Meet Me in St. Louis that cemented O'Brien's reputation; her duet with Garland, "Under the Bamboo Tree" is a particular charmer. Indeed, she received an Oscar as Outstanding Child Actress of 1944.
Although not one of my favorite actresses, in this movie she’s really terrific. Her character is intriguing mainly because Minnelli focused on the fact that Tootie was obsessed with death and dying. Through the entire film Tootie is either plotting to kill someone, attempting to kill someone, or is lying about killing someone. O’Brien, a capable actress, is chirpy and at times a bit annoying, but I think it works to her advantage. She’s also charming and endearing simply because we know what the underside of who Tootie really is.
I love the fact that when the news is broken that the Smith’s are moving to New York, her first response is that it will take weeks to dig up all her dolls. A smart way to cut the sugar from what could have been an ordinary performance.
Probably best known as feisty Ma Kettle, this versatile actress also sparked a number of other, bigger films with her boisterous manner and memorably scratchy voice. She logged nearly 100 film appearances in all during a 20-year screen career. Her breakthrough role was that of the weary, sad, and impoverished mother of gangster Humphrey Bogart in Dead End, it was a characterization she repeated, with little variation but astonishing consistency, in at least a half a dozen other movies Her father was a minister, and when she joined a local stock company as a youngster she changed her name to avoid embarrassing her family. She worked in vaudeville and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her film debut was in "A House Divided" in 1931. She repeated her stage role in "Dead End" as Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart)'s mother, which led to a number of slum mother parts. She then played the role of Lucy, the dude ranch operator in "The Women”. She achieved popularity as a comedienne in six 1940s movies made with Wallace Beery e.g., "Barnacle Bill", and the classic “Min and Bill” (a personal favorite of mine). The character which would dominate her remaining career was established when she played Ma Kettle in "The Egg and I" another great comedy co starring the magnificent Claudette Colbert, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She began her co-starring series with Percy Kilbride the following year in "Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin'" and continued through seven more. Her last movie was a "Kettles", though without Kilbride: "The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm”.
Main was been a pro for many years before St Louis came along. By then, she’d already perfected the thick skinned yet warm underneath crackly domestic. Main’s uber exuberance and steady personality off screen (and her sometimes odd behavior off) always seemed to allow her characters on screen to flourish.
In “St Louis”, the pop of her head, the way she reacts to the children and yet defends them as well is heart warming. Main never had to really do much to let us know she was in the room that was always understood. A wonderful performance by a woman few people remember by name.
Her German immigrant father pushed her into a beauty contest at 14 and her first movie Sentimental Tommy at 15. After a number of minor parts she starred in John Barrymore's Beau Brummel . She had a lively affair with Barrymore, over with before she starred a second time with him, in Don Juan , the first silent movie with Vitaphone music and sound effects. Her first husband, director Kenneth Hawks (brother of Howard Hawks), died in a 1930 plane crash. While divorcing her second husband in 1936 her personal diary was entered in evidence in the custody fight for their daughter. Included among other well-publicized juicy bits was her secret affair with playwright George Kaufman. Her career picked up after the scandal -- The Prisoner of Zenda , Midnight (again with Barrymore), _Brigham Young - Frontiersman , and a best supporting Oscar for The Great Lie, a wonderful, wonderful old film. Her crowning role was the lying Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon probably as gar away from Anna Smith as you could get. Astor was an actress with great range.. Three divorces, alcoholism, and attempted suicide resulted in smaller parts from then on till Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte , her last due to a heart condition.
Mary Astor was born, Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke, on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois. Her parents were very ambitious for her as they recognized Mary's beauty and knowing if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. They understood that they wanted something better for their daughter than they had, so they made it happen by pushing Mary into various beauty contests.
Astor’s calm and wistful demeanor through this film give it a heart and a steady beat. She is the Mother Earth on which all turmoil must be stopped. Cool as a cucumber, until her family is challenged. When the dam is broken, and it only happens for a split second here, we get to see Astor let loose. It’s a monumental moment, and one that allows this film to become much more than a mere sugary trip down memory lane.
In this scene, Lon (played beautifully by Leon Ames) sits in his accustomed way, in his usual armchair in the parlor, puts a cigar in his mouth and lights it with a golden-glowing match. While the musical soundtrack plays the opening bars of the title song, he holds the match until it burns his fingers - and pricks his conscience. With a start, he extinguishes the match and calls out "Anna, Anna," and then summons the family together downstairs.
After reconsidering, his first words to his family about moving them all to New York – the Smith family come charging downstairs:
“We're not moving to New York and I don't want to hear a word about it. We're going to stay right here. We're going to stay here till we rot.” He points out, hands generously on his hips.
Anna responds: "We haven't rotted yet, Lonnie."
Mr. Smith has decided to compromise with his family and stay in St. Louis after all, refusing his company's promotion regardless of the work prospects and other consequences. The moment of revelation, shock, and jubilation peaks when Warren Sheffield rings the bell, enters, and quickly blurts out his marriage proposal to Rose.
And then, Anna walks slowly out of frame. Minnelli shrewdly allows this moment to play itself out, and puts Astor in the upper right corner of the frame. That way, when it happens, we are completely taken by surprise. Just as she is.
I have in my head little moments in various movies that I believe deserve an Oscar. Mitchell and I call it the “8 minutes Oscar”. It might be the way an actor holds a prop, or reads two or three lines, or is influenced and listening to the lead character during their big Break Down Monologue. These are moments that are clear and precise and by themselves, and utterly amazing.
Mary Astor has one of these moments in St Louis, and this is it.
Astor walks to the credenza where there is a mark left by the clock that’s stood there for years. She stretches her hand along the top of it, and begins to look around the room. The tearful joy and ultimate relief in her eyes in near painful. It’s merely a look, and it lasts all of 4 or 5 seconds. Then Lonnie comes up behind her, touches her hand, and she collapses in his arms.
The release of the pent up fear that her family would be lost forever comes pouring out of her like a river, and all we’re left with is her back heaving up and down. It is a release of thanks, of joy, of excitement, and quite frankly, the soul of the film for me. A magnificent moment by a brilliant actress.
She was born in the Upper Mississippi River town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where the Judy Garland Museum takes up an entire floor of the old grade school. A block away is the site of the home where Garland spent the first five years of her life. That spot is now occupied by a multiplex cinema in the town's only shopping center. Garland's father operated the only movie theater in Grand Rapids until he moved the family to California in 1927. Garland made her stage debut at that Grand Rapids Theater with her two older sisters. In 1934 the Gumm Sisters performed in Chicago during the World's Fair there.
She immediately attracted attention in such films as Pigskin Parade , Love Finds Andy Hardy and Broadway Melody of 1938 , but Judy Garland didn't truly become a star until she was cast in The Wizard of Oz, the Grand Daddy of all star making stories. Her performance as Dorothy won her a special Juvenile Oscar, and it was this role, of course, that gave her her most famous song, "Over the Rainbow."
Here's a little more St Louis for you.
Judy initially wanted nothing to do with Meet Me in St. Louis. She fought hard to duck the assignment (her mother even went to see L.B. Mayer on her behalf) because she was finally being given some adult roles (such as For Me and My Gal and Presenting Lily Mars), and she was concerned about being cast as a seventeen-year-old, and the last thing she wanted was to go back and play a love starved teenager infatuated with an acne ridden neighbor next door.
“I’m tired of looking up at the Heavens and asking why.” She once said.
But Mayer was insistent, and Minnelli eventually convinced her to play the part. After she began working on the project, she soon became enchanted with the story and eventually came to love it, considering it one of her favorite roles.
Although the role doesn’t call for her to stretch as a dramatic actress, she does what she does best. She brings an inner life and vivacity to Esther Smith that in the hands of any other actress would seem flat and one dimensional. And then there’s the moments when she sings. Judy sitting on the window sill singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is musical movie gold. Remember, this was the first time anyone had ever heard the song before.
“I loved going to shoot that film” said an extra on the set, “I got to hear Judy Garland sing. Sometimes 10 or 11 times a day.”
Although every musical star of the day would lip synch to a track played on large speakers during filming, Judy was one of the few that actually sung along with her own voice. Most of the time, even louder than the play back.
I think for me, it’s when Esther has convinced John Truitt to help her turn out all the lights in the house for fear of mice. Esther stands atop the stair. Minnelli has lit her from behind, above and from the sides so brilliantly, Garland almost seems to glow. She then sings a lilting and rarely copied waltz/lullaby titled “Over The Bannister”, to John as the, moonlight gleams in through the window behind her. Judy is soft and subtle here. She doing 15 different things as she sings to the man she’s in love with. She is shy, she is conniving, she is relaxed, and yet, there’s a beautiful teenage angst that is still visible through all her false bravado. Not only is the fact of Judy Garland singing that song a focal point, but how she gets it across is nothing less than astounding. It’s a great moment and in the hands of Judy, a memorable one as well.
Garland was a rare breed when it came to the good old fashioned musical, and here, she is at her zenith as a performer. A controlled and lilting performance by one of the greatest actors of the 20th century.
The story is based on the book of the same name from Sally Benson's memoirs of her life in St. Louis, Missouri from 1903-4 - they were recalled and written in multiple issues of The New Yorker Magazine from 1941-1942 (originally published under the title "5135 Kensington" and eventually gathered together as The Kensington Stories). The charming stories, a dozen in all to represent each of the twelve months of the year, are expressed in the film in its musical numbers.
The film abandoned the 'put-on-a-show' mentality of so many other backstage song/dance films. Its songs and wonderful performances are carefully and naturally integrated into the story of the close-knit family's day-to-day life, and serve to advance the action and plot from one season to the next. As with “Oklahoma” there is at no time when a character simply sings to be singing. There’s always a reason and en emotional through line to help push the song along. A real departure for musicals of that time period.
TRIVIA
• This movie marked the film debut of Lucille Bremer, a former Radio City Rockette.
• Van Johnson was originally slated for the John Truett role, but was replaced by Tom Drake at the last moment.
• The movie was based on a series of tales entitled "The Kensington Stories," by Sally Benson, which appeared in The New Yorker in between 1941 and 1942. MGM bought the stories for a reported $40,000.
• Producer Arthur Freed dubbed Leon Ames' voice for the "You and I" number
• The film's sets, designed by Lemuel Ayers and including broad streets, gabled, gothic homes, large lawns, bay windows, and filigreed woodwork, cost MGM more than $200,000--then a staggering amount--but they were subsequently used many times over.
• Continuity mistake: In the "Under the Bamboo Tree" number, Tootie's house shoes change from pink to blue.
• Mary Astor, who played Mrs. Anna Smith, also played Judy's mother in LISTEN, DARLING.
• A year after the film's release, Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli.
• "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" was an outtake from "Oklahoma!” written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. After previews, Minnelli decided to cut it from St. Louis as well, feeling that it added little to the story. The song was later recorded by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra for Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but was dropped from that picture as well. It is a beautiful song, and Hugh Martin recalls that after the movie was released, his mother called him, saying it was wonderful that he had finally written such a lovely song.
Meet Me In St Louis is a delightful, classic, nostalgic, poignant, and romanticized musical film - and one of the greatest musicals ever made.
This is a film about Home. The Smith family is uprooted by the patriarch in the assumption that he’s doing what’s best, and as this move becomes a reality, they are forced to stick together and make decisions that affect everyone as a unit. Everyone grows up. They ultimately decide that no matter what happens, or where they are, or how far they have to travel, nothing can take away the fact that they are family and that is what binds them together. This happens during the Holiday season when emotions already run high and when we’re expected to lend our hearts out willingly. Especially to those closest to us.
In my twenties I was estranged from my own family and thus had to search for an alternate one bit by bit. The people I choose and who choose, me saved my life many times over. During that time, I realized that it wasn’t about being born into something; it was about what we were willing to give up and what we were willing to sacrifice. When bridges were mended I was able to combine my two families, and become secure in the fact that Home is where you make it. Whether or not it’s with people you grew up with or not, the mere Fact of those people is enough to carry the load of the traumas that infiltrate our lives. Home is never lost, as long you are loved.
For the final fadeout, Esther proudly delivers the last line of the film - St. Louis is the magical center of the world's attention:
"I can't believe it. Right here where we live. Right here in St. Louis."
And they are together. And that’s what matters most.