Classic Hollywood musical from the great Freed/Minelli team, replete with a number of classic show-stopping tunes still with us today. It's very easy to attack the film today for its over-sentimentalised picture of family life in turn of the century America but given its genesis in 1944 when the Allied Forces were still trying to win the war against Germany and Japan (I'm writing this coincidentally on remembrance Sunday), its admittedly overdone message of home town loyalty and family life still strikes a chord.
Yes, you may have a job uncurling your toes after watching the antics of infant-terrible Toots (surely no-one calls their offspring by a name like this, even in America) - her Hallowe'en "adventure" in particular is excruciatingly embarrassing to witness and worse, takes up a good ten minutes or so which could have been filled by another song. And what songs..."The Boy Next Door", "The Trolley Song", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" (lovely to hear this as the festive season beckons) and of course the title song itself.
The story takes us through a year in the lives of the family and each quarter is cleverly kicked off with a picture-postcard still coming to life, effortlessly drawing the viewer into the fantasy. Brat apart, the rest of the family are likable enough if too much this side of the unctuous-o-meter. Judy Garland shines far above the rest with a less sentimental approach to the gloopy material, at the same time looking healthy and pretty and singing as only she can.
The ending of course is never in doubt, with everybody living happily ever after. I'll remember it more for the set-pieces which drape those wonderful songs, although Minelli's camera-work is a wonder throughout, imbuing the whole with a magical colour and light you simply don't see nowadays. If only they'd inserted "Toot Toot Tootsy Goodbye..." into the song-list!
Yes, you may have a job uncurling your toes after watching the antics of infant-terrible Toots (surely no-one calls their offspring by a name like this, even in America) - her Hallowe'en "adventure" in particular is excruciatingly embarrassing to witness and worse, takes up a good ten minutes or so which could have been filled by another song. And what songs..."The Boy Next Door", "The Trolley Song", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" (lovely to hear this as the festive season beckons) and of course the title song itself.
The story takes us through a year in the lives of the family and each quarter is cleverly kicked off with a picture-postcard still coming to life, effortlessly drawing the viewer into the fantasy. Brat apart, the rest of the family are likable enough if too much this side of the unctuous-o-meter. Judy Garland shines far above the rest with a less sentimental approach to the gloopy material, at the same time looking healthy and pretty and singing as only she can.
The ending of course is never in doubt, with everybody living happily ever after. I'll remember it more for the set-pieces which drape those wonderful songs, although Minelli's camera-work is a wonder throughout, imbuing the whole with a magical colour and light you simply don't see nowadays. If only they'd inserted "Toot Toot Tootsy Goodbye..." into the song-list!