Film #26: Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Director: Vincente Minelli

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: none

20-Words-or-Fewer Summary (no spoilers, not that it matters):

Well-to-do, cheery family sings their way through a potential move from St. Louis to New York in 1903.

Blow-by-Blow Summary (detailed plot outline, with spoilers):

It's 1903 and the World's Fair is coming to Saint Louis, Missouri. The four sisters in the Smith family, a wealthy, happy tribe, have concerns. The two eldest daughters, Esther (Judy Garland) and Rose (Lucille Bremer), are pining to marry eligible bachelors. Esther has her sights set on the new dashing neighbor, John Truett (Tom Drake), while Rose awaits the proposal of another strapping young fellow. Their two much younger sisters are chuckling through the formative years of their innocent childhood.

Their father drops a bit of a bombshell when he arrives home one day and announces that the family will be moving to New York, so that he can take a new position. The family is greatly upset at the things that they will have to abandon in St. Louis: potential husbands, friends, and the fast-approaching World's Fair.

Here's Esther, regaling the riveted riders with her "Clang...the Trolley" tune.

The entire family sings their way through all of their joys and fears, with Mr. Smith finally making the decision not to move, in order to preserve his family's happiness and roots in their beloved city. His decision is rewarded in the end, when his daughters both become engaged and they all drink in the majesty of the World's Fair of 1904.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (done after one viewing, before any research on the film):

This movie can kiss my ass.

Up to this point, I would say The Awful Truth had been the most taxing on my patience. Now, there is a new, undisputed champion of insufferability: Meet Me in St. Louis.

It's going to take some research for me to figure out why this movie made TIME magazines list of 100 important films. I have my theories, which I'll expound upon below, but I don't need to ponder my feelings about watching this movie - I couldn't stand it.

I've made clear my feelings on musicals before. The only shot a musical has in entertaining me is if: (1) the story has enough substance to hold my interest, and (2) the music is well-woven into the fabric of the film. This is why a musical like Swing Time or Cabaret is enjoyable for me. Meet Me in Saint Louis contains everything that steers me away from the genre. It's pure fluff and a textbook case of style over substance.

The story is as edgy as a down pillow. I honestly couldn't have cared less about the privileged Smith clan and their "problems" of finding love and dealing with a possible move to New York. After watching Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Double Indemnity, three movies with a great amount of creative artistry and psychological sophistication and maturity, Meet Me in St. Louis was like watching an episode of The Wiggles. Actually, the Wiggles think the Smiths are a bunch of pansies.

Shocking factoid: Double Indemnity and Meet Me in St. Louis were released mere months apart, both to great success. This blows my mind and speaks to some kind of multiple personality disorder that U.S. culture was beginning to undergo.

The songs are bubble-gum fare of the highest order. The best-known cuts are "Clang Goes the Trolley" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the latter of which is actually a classic and a legitimately great song. Aside from that, however, the only thing I can say about the music is that it's infectious. That's not a complement - I mean infectious in the same way that Mad Cow disease is infectious. You can't shake it and it will melt your brain.

You may (or may not) ask, "How on earth did you make it through nearly two hours of a film that you so obviously hated?" Good question. The answer is that my girlfriend and I took the opportunity to persistently add our own snarky commentary and voice-overs, a la Mystery Science Theater 3000. Two scenes in particular gave us some good ammunition. One was when a confused and enraged Judy Garland believes that her little sister has been roughed up by the neighbor, John. She promptly goes over and pummels the shit out of him. The second was when little "Tootie" Smith, after hearing her older sister attempt to sooth her sadness by singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," runs outside, grabs a massive stick, and commences to decapitate, eviscerate and disembowel the placid snowpeople in their front lawn. I'll save you the trouble and offer this latter little gem here (it is actually the one scene from the movie that I'd listen to and watch again):

That little chick's got a mean backswing.

Obviously, sarcasm was my only chance to survive through this piece of work. So, why is this movie touted so highly? My guess is that it was the first of its kind: a shockingly vibrant, well-shot formulaic musical. I'm not sure if there was a predecessor to it: Gone With the Wind type visuals, absolutely nothing controversial, and a string of snappy tunes, however sappy I think they may be. It's either that or simply the endurance of the Christmas song, which has become part of the American pop culture and holiday landscape.

I believe I've made myself clear. I do realize that many people love this type of film: The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Grease, and others could be put into the same category. I will say this though: even though I don't like any of these three films, either, at least they have a shade more edge to them. Meet Me in St. Louis is, to me, an absolutely G-Rated exercise in forgettable excess.

To paraphrase Leo from Miller's Crossing: if I never see it again, it'll be soon enough.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love this Movie (done after some further research):

Surprisingly, there's really not much out there to explain exactly what sets Meet Me in St. Louis apart from the others. Based on Richard Schickel's quick-shot review, I glean that this movie has a place in history for being the first film that offered the musical format using more down-to-earth characters (rather than high-minded, pure aristocrats, I assume).

The original review is an interesting little read, if only for two things. One is the line, "even the deaf should love this film." Oh, political correctness, where were you in 1944? While amusing, this little gag does point out that the visuals were impressive. The second thing the reviewer mentioned comes at the end - that the whole story and look of the film are too beautiful and attractive to be mistaken for the truth. These things, and the popularity of the songs, are seemingly what have dubbed this film a "classic."

And this, as stated before, is probably the bone that sticks in my craw. I don't mind heavy doses of complete fiction (I'm too big a fantasy and sci-fi nerd to try and argue that), but I can't take the froo-froo veneer of a film like Meet Me in St. Louis. Sorry.

That's a wrap. 26 shows down, 79 to go.

Coming Soon: Les Enfants du Paradis ("Children of Paradise"; 1945):

A 3-hour French drama set in a circus and revolving around a love triangle involving a mime. On the surface, it seems like a death sentence. Come on back and see if and how I survive this one.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #13: Swing Time (1936)

Director: George Stevens.

Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about a year ago)

The Story (in which I go through all of the plot points, spoilers included. Fair warning):

John "Lucky" Garnet is a talented dancer and gambling man about to get married to the young Margaret, but the guys in his performing troupe don't want to lose their best talent. They foil his wedding, leaving Lucky to make a deal with his fiancee and her father - come up with $25,000 to show he's worth something and he can have her hand in marriage. He's off!

A broke Lucky and his former manager, Pop, soon run across Penny, a dance instructor who initially finds him annoying, but comes to love him. Together, they navigate a few bumps in the occupational road and forge Penny a career as dancer, all the while falling for each other, despite Lucky's still-standing engagement to Margaret. Lucky tries to honor his promise to marry Margaret by not getting involved with Penny, which Penny reads as disinterest. Thus, she nearly gives in to the advances of the suave but pompous maestro, Ricardo Romero.

In the end, Lucky and his Margaret both admit to loving other people, which frees Lucky up to lightheartedly foil Penny's marriage to Ricardo and give us the happy joining that we've been waiting for.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (done after 1 viewing & before any research):

Great movie. And this is a lot coming from me, a person who vehemently dislikes nearly all musicals. I had forgotten that I had seen this one about a year ago, but once it began I remembered that it was one of the few musicals that stood out as likable to me. "Why?" you ask? Well...

I think my main problem with musical films is that they usually just don't mesh to me. West Side Story is supposed to be Romeo & Juliet, but on the dangerous mean streets, right? Well, pardon me if I don't buy into the danger when the "gangs" are wearing pastel skinny jeans, jumping around like figure skaters, and singing about how tough they are. Same goes for The Sound of Music - I simply can't get past thinking, "Stop singing and run from those Nazis, for chissakes!!"

Swing Time avoids all of this nonsense. Since the story is about entertainers, the song and dance numbers fit almost seamlessly into the story. Lucky is a dancer and Penny is a dance instructor, so it makes sense when they break into dances, and even sing together on occasion. Of course, it goes without saying that the two were phenomenal dancers. I'm no expert, but watching them made me want to take ballroom lessons to even approach the grace and fluidity of their movements. Check out this clip to get a taste for how damn awesome they were (I especially like the non-chalant walk-out at the end):



Freakin' amazing footwork.

The players were incredible. Fred and Ginger were all-around fantastic entertainers. There's really nothing that they didn't do well: singing and dancing are the obvious ones, but they were both really strong actors with great senses of comedic timing. I really like Astaire's character - he wasn't a drop-dead handsome guy, but he was pretty smooth. In Swing Time, the character of Lucky is a genuinely lovable high-rollin', tap dancin', cigarette smokin', wise-crackin' rogue. Ginger Rodgers was also great, easily keeping up with Astaire and absolutely smokin' hot, if I can apply such a modern idiom to one of the greats from our past.

Already alluded to is the comedy. This movie is legitimately funny and some of the cracks totally hold up 75 years later. All of the ingredients are there - a solid script and two strong lead actors who could pull it off. The final pieces to the puzzle were the two key supporting roles of Pop and Mabel, the male/female assistants of Lucky and Penny, played by Victor Moore and Helen Broderick. Sure, there are some hokey jokes, but these two made me laugh out loud more than a few times.

There are really only two things that bugged me a bit. One is that, at the end, there was a lot of one of my greatest pet peeves in acting - forced contagious laughter. You know - when a character pulls some goofy, slapstick gag and the entire cast starts laughing uproariously in a way that borders on insane. Well, the last 10 minutes of Swing Time is just such a yuk-fest and irked me somewhat.

The other is that the next-to-last dance act, Mr. Bojangles, is done by Astaire in blackface. I can't really say there's anything overtly racist about it, as he doesn't try to sing with any kind of condescending "ethnic" accent or anything, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up a bit when I see stuff like that from films past.

I've already told multiple friends about how much I enjoyed this film, and I'll continue to do so. Take it from a musical-hater - nearly everyone can find something to like about this movie, as long as they have no great objection to black and white and they understand that's it's all in good fun.

Take 2: "Why Film Geeks Love It" (done after some further research on the movie):

This was a first for me. In re-watching the movie with audio commentary by John Mueller, something was pointed out to me: just how much I should have ripped this movie for several weaknesses. There are some serious plot holes and questionable actions by the characters, and yet I didn't care. In fact, I didn't even think about them until the commentator pointed them out. To me, this shows just how charming the movie is. Even now, when I know the missing elements for which I would be pissed at another film, I don't really care. I still think Swing Time is great. Mueller put it well when explaining that it's a movie in which the sum of its parts is greater than the whole - each scene is great enough to gloss over the occasional lack of cohesion.

The Astaire/Rogers dance movies were monstrously popular. So much so that they essentially started a massive dance craze in the U.S., and even a few other countries. Apparently, some critics knock(ed) the films for being so much fluff, which is a fair observation. Still, I don't go into a musical/dance film to find serious social commentary or even tragedy or drama (West Side Story, anyone?), so I don't see the point of getting bent out of shape about it.

I shouldn't have been surprised at the comedic chops of Victor Moore & Helen Broderick. Moore was an accomplished vaudevillian & stage comedian, and Broderick was just naturally funny as hell. When I re-watched it, they were just as good.

Something interesting is that Fred Astaire absolutely refused to do an on-screen kiss with Ginger Rogers. He never felt that he was much of a "looker" and he thought such kisses were contrived and had already seen their day in cinema. So, he artfully teased the audience. Here's an amusing sample (start it at about 1:30):


The blackface bit. As stated in Take 1, I know that it wasn't really meant as offensive, and Mueller's commentary calmed my nerves a bit more. He pointed out that the dance was, as I suspected, a tribute to an old African-American dancer named Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Astaire wasn't even using the full "white-wide lips" make-up that really appeals to stereotypes. Here it actually is (the Bojangles character shows up at 1:30):


The final thing that re-watching it gave me was a greater appreciation of the slower beauty of some of the dances and the way that they are meant to convey the emotional transitions of the characters. The dance numbers truly do take the place of dialogue and facial expressions, perhaps as even more accurate representations of the emotions that they evoke than words could ever be.

That's a wrap. 13 shows in the can. 92 to go.

Coming Soon: Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936):


Never seen this one. I would laugh at this poster if I hadn't discovered, in recent years, that there are some kick-ass noir films from France. Maybe this was one of the earliest? Come back and find out.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.