4/4  Meet Me In St. Louis Quick Review
An excellent, beautiful musical. Judy Garland is at her finest, and the rest of the cast rises to meet her. This is definitely a Judy Garland musical, however, and may not be for the casual fan.

3/5 Every critic in the world seems to love this movie...
  by Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Vicente Minnelli, 1944)

I spent a good block of time in 2007 and 2008 compiling thousand-best lists found in books and on the Internet, either compilations (found in places like the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? website) or lists compiled by fans, critics, and the like, usually in book form (e.g. Jonathan Rosenbaum's thousand must-see films list, easily findable on the net, or the New York Times guide to the thousand best films, a book). I did a bunch of data mining with the compilation when I got done; ten lists gave me about thirty-eight hundred different movies, a great deal less than I expected. There's a lot of crossover. But that crossover is usually limited to two or three lists; when you start looking at films that appear on five or more lists, you get down to a very small selection of films. No single movie appears on all ten lists, which actually surprises me (for some reason, I had jotted down that there were two). Twenty-eight movies appear on nine of the ten lists; for trivia purposes, the odd man out in almost every case is the quirky, fun Halliwell list. But the twenty-eight in that nine-of-ten sublist are the cream of the crop. You've heard most of their names bandied about pretty much everywhere; The Maltese Falcon, Psycho, Last Tango in Paris, Rebel Without a Cause, that sort of thing. To my mind, there are only two outright surprises on the list (though I admit I paused for a moment at Hitchcock's Rebecca). One of them is Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. The other is Meet Me in St. Louis. One doesn't normally think of period musicals as being among the best films of all time, at least not those not written by Ridgers and Hammerstein. And yet there it is. It's currently ranked as the 220th greatest movie ever made at They Shoot Pictures (down from 201st this month; TSPDT is a dynamic list that compiles surveys from almost two thousand critics), and everyone from Halliwell to Rosenbaum, and almost everyone in between, considers it a must-see.

Meet Me in St. Louis, set in the title city (mostly) during the winter before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, is the story of a family: mom and dad, a son, four daughters, and a plucky housekeeper. Much of the picture centers on youngest daughter Tootie (adorable child star Margaret O'Brien, who's still going strong; as I write this, work is wrapping on her latest film, Frankenstein Rising), the real draw of the picture is Esther, the second-oldest daughter, played by Judy Garland. In any case, this is a character-driven picture for the most, part, so a plot synopsis is going to give much of the game away if I go anywhere substantive; it all starts off with Esther pining for the boy next door and oldest daughter Rose (Lucille Bremer) eagerly awaiting a call from New York City, during which she expects to be proposed to. Things all go haywire from there; misunderstandings, travails, and musical numbers abound as we head for the Christmas season.

I remain unconvinced that anyone remembers the film for anything other than two things that are, at best, incidental to it; it is the film in which the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" made its debut (with somewhat different lyrics than we have today), and it's the film where Vicente Minnelli met his future wife, Judy Garland. When it comes right down to the film, it's really something of a plotless mess, though quite a gaudy and fine-looking one. Judy Garland could cover Tom Waits and make it sound torchy, so when you've got songs that were written to her strengths, they're pretty much guaranteed winners, and Margaret O'Brien shows why she was the main successor to Shirley Temple in the realm of ultra-cute perky kids. The movie is marred, however, by the incredible stupidity of a number of its characters, most of all Esther, who makes bad decision after bad decision in order to advance various plot points. It could be argued, of course, that this is a musical, and realism pretty much flies out the window when it comes to musicals. True, but that doesn't mean you can't have realistic characters making realistic choices when they're not breaking into spontaneous, highly-choreographed dance numbers. (Singin' in the Rain, anyone?)

Dumb fun. I don't regret watching it, but it's not something I'll do again in the near future. ** ½


5/5 GREAT CONDITION GREAT FUN
  by M. Dow
i have had several bad experiences recently with items bought from amazon. i have not had the sellers OR amazon even reply to my many requests for attention to them. i was reluctant to purchase again, but we really wanted this movie and its hard to find. we are pleasantly surprised with the great condition and have enjoyed the great memories it has brought us.
i am happy i took the chance.
thank you Michele

4/5 A very enjoyable distraction
  by Action Jackson (Illinois)
Good performances. A fun period piece. A good diversion. Overall, a solid movie. I'm not sure how St. Louis looked in 1903, but I'm going to guess that this movie approaches it with rose colored glasses. The family was solidly upper middle class and real problems were not plaguing them. But sometimes you want an escapist movie and you get this with this movie. I'm also a sucker for 'main street USA' movies set around 1900. Pollyanna, Two Weeks with Love (Ricardo Mantalbon, Debbie Reynolds, hard to find, but very good). etc...

4/5 Classic Family Film
  by A. L. Moore
Judy Garland is sweet and the songs are original and entertaining. This movie is great for the whole family. It has a lot of substance and no fillers.


5/5 Meet Me In St. Louis is a Classic
  by Pamela L. Curchin (Middletown, NJ)
This is my favorite movie of all time and I'm thrilled to have multiple copies to enjoy forever. Great Judy Garland music and choreography. Love the time period in the early 1900's and beautiful costumes. Can't go wrong with this one.