Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

        Margaret O'Brien and Judy Garland

'Meet Me in St. Louis' is a romantic musical movie made by MGM in 1944, directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer and Tom Drake. It has become a classic of the musical genre and is regarded as one of the greatest musicals ever made. It contains wonderful musical numbers including the standards "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" which became hits after the film was released.

'Meet Me in St. Louis' was nominated for four Academy Awards but did not win any, due in large part to MGM's extensive support for its other nomination, the movie thriller 'Gaslight'. Margaret O'Brien received a special Academy Award as outstanding child actress of the year. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

It was commercially successful from the moment it was released and was one of the top films of 1944. It has since become one of the highest ever grossing musicals.

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The movie tells the story of a well-to-do family with four beautiful daughters living in St. Louis just before the spectacular World's Fair of 1904 and how they deal with the father's proposed transfer to New York which impacts on each of their lives.

'Meet Me in St. Louis' is one of the most unusual and highly-charged musicals in Hollywood history. It blends the two genres at which Minnelli was most adept - musical and melodrama - and even, in its darkest moments (such as a sequence devoted to Halloween terrors), edges toward being a horror movie. It is also a film that can be read in starkly contrasting ways: either as a perfectly innocent and naive celebration of traditional family values, or else a brooding meditation on everything that tears the family unit apart from within.

Yes, I am talking about the same film in which Garland moons and croons 'The Boy Next Door' and - in a showstopping highlight - sways with a pack of colorful passengers as she belts out 'The Trolley Song'. Minnelli's project is quietly ambitious: not merely to tell the story of a lovably 'average' family - and the challenges it stoically faces - but to also sketch the history of a bold new 20th century society defined by events such as the World's Fair.

Minnelli's artistic sensibility - his sexuality is either an open question or an open secret, depending on which Hollywood history you consult - responded well to female yearning and male anxiety, and an excess of both makes this musical unfailingly melodramatic. Patriarchy comes in the cuddly, grumpy form of Leon Ames, valiantly trying to assert his authority in the face of an overwhelmingly female household. The parade of boyfriends for the girls have, likewise, to be prodded, manipulated, and informed of their rightful, mating destiny.

As for the aesthetic challenges of the musical, Minnelli and his collaborators went a long way toward integrating singing and dancing into a whimsical, fairy tale flow of incidents. Songs begin as throwaway phrases, spoken or hummed out in the street or at the door; they suddenly die away as a plot intrigue kicks in.

Beneath the elegant display of filmic style, and the civilized veneer of manners, it is only Tootie who can express emotions that are savage and untamed - as her "exotica" duet with Judy, 'Under the Bamboo Tree", jovially indicates.

'Meet Me in St Louis' presents an idealised picture of an America that probably never really existed, but it is a heartwarming tale, a wonderful escapist movie with a happy ending. Not to be missed.