Meet Me in St. Louis is a movie of bits and pieces which never quite all come together properly. The movie has its charms, it has some very good moments. But there's a bit of a disjointed feel to it. You have the good bits but when you toss them all together you're left with the sense that the movie is lacking something in between. The pieces just don't fit properly, and some of the pieces seem to be missing altogether. Judy Garland is, as you would expect, excellent but she doesn't seem to have quite enough help. One great star isn't enough to make this movie really shine.
The story follows the Smith family of St. Louis in the months leading up to that city's 1904 World's Fair. It's the biggest thing to ever hit St. Louis and everyone is so excited. Well the kids are anyway, it seems the adults could take it or leave it. There are four daughters and one rather irrelevant to the proceedings son in the Smith family. Garland plays the second eldest of the four Smith girls, Esther. She's in love with the boy next door although as the film opens she hasn't even met the guy. The oldest sister, Rose, has a romantic storyline of her own while the two younger girls, Agnes and Tootie, are there primarily to engage in shenanigans. But of course Garland is this movie's big star so it's no surprise her character of Esther is the main focus. Garland gives a very good, very charming performance and has a few memorable songs too. For as much as you appreciate the movie's great star there is at times though that nagging sense that the movie really isn't working as well as it should.
It's a movie in which the first half works better than the second. The setup is better than the payoff. Almost all of the musical numbers are jammed into the first half of the film. Later on, when you're looking for a song to perk things up you're out of luck. The one big song late on in the film, the now oh so familiar Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, is terrific and beautifully performed by Garland. But for as wonderful and poignant as that song is energetic it is not. The lively songs all come and go too quickly for the movie's own good. And those songs are hit and miss anyway. The Trolley Song really works. The title song though sticks in your head more as an annoyance than a pleasure. And even when something works it seems the movie has no idea how to follow it. The Trolley Song sequence is great but as soon as it ends we jump forward months ahead in time to a Halloween sequence which, in the grand scheme of the movie, seems rather out of place, quite pointless. Hadn't that trolley been going somewhere? In fact it had, but the scene that should have been there, with its accompanying musical number, was cut. Which makes it rather jarring when at the end of the film a character refers back to that scene, the one we never saw. Just the clearest example of how disjointed this movie is. A bunch of pieces, some good, some adequate, some disappointing were thrown together and the end result doesn't quite satisfy. It's not a bad movie by any means and well worth watching for Garland if nothing else. But after a promising first half of the picture the film's energy seems to slowly drain away. There's no doubt the pieces were there to make a better movie than this. But in this case those pieces never managed to be put together as well as you would hope.
The story follows the Smith family of St. Louis in the months leading up to that city's 1904 World's Fair. It's the biggest thing to ever hit St. Louis and everyone is so excited. Well the kids are anyway, it seems the adults could take it or leave it. There are four daughters and one rather irrelevant to the proceedings son in the Smith family. Garland plays the second eldest of the four Smith girls, Esther. She's in love with the boy next door although as the film opens she hasn't even met the guy. The oldest sister, Rose, has a romantic storyline of her own while the two younger girls, Agnes and Tootie, are there primarily to engage in shenanigans. But of course Garland is this movie's big star so it's no surprise her character of Esther is the main focus. Garland gives a very good, very charming performance and has a few memorable songs too. For as much as you appreciate the movie's great star there is at times though that nagging sense that the movie really isn't working as well as it should.
It's a movie in which the first half works better than the second. The setup is better than the payoff. Almost all of the musical numbers are jammed into the first half of the film. Later on, when you're looking for a song to perk things up you're out of luck. The one big song late on in the film, the now oh so familiar Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, is terrific and beautifully performed by Garland. But for as wonderful and poignant as that song is energetic it is not. The lively songs all come and go too quickly for the movie's own good. And those songs are hit and miss anyway. The Trolley Song really works. The title song though sticks in your head more as an annoyance than a pleasure. And even when something works it seems the movie has no idea how to follow it. The Trolley Song sequence is great but as soon as it ends we jump forward months ahead in time to a Halloween sequence which, in the grand scheme of the movie, seems rather out of place, quite pointless. Hadn't that trolley been going somewhere? In fact it had, but the scene that should have been there, with its accompanying musical number, was cut. Which makes it rather jarring when at the end of the film a character refers back to that scene, the one we never saw. Just the clearest example of how disjointed this movie is. A bunch of pieces, some good, some adequate, some disappointing were thrown together and the end result doesn't quite satisfy. It's not a bad movie by any means and well worth watching for Garland if nothing else. But after a promising first half of the picture the film's energy seems to slowly drain away. There's no doubt the pieces were there to make a better movie than this. But in this case those pieces never managed to be put together as well as you would hope.