Meet Me In St Louis (1944)

This film registered on my conscious in the same way most of the things I know about do; through the Simpsons. As soon as I saw Martin walking down the street singing the trolly song I became intrigued, where was that song from, what did it mean. However, this intrigue did not manifest itself for years as it was only this month that I finally decided to sit down and watch Meet Me In St Louis. The film centres on Esther Smith (Judy Garland) and her family, the sisters love lives, the fathers work life and their reluctance at moving to New York City away from the life, and men, that they've learned to love so well. Set at the start of the 20th century this is very much a period piece, and as such lost a certain amount of interest for me, as I found it very hard to relate to these woman whose main complaint was that their neighbour didn't look at them when they were talking very loudly trying to attract his attention.

However, this aside the film on a technical level is all very proficient. Judy Garland is an actress I had basically only seen in The Wizard Of Oz (a film I cherish and love) and showed here that she could again do the naive young girl, but also a more feisty side to her character that I'd not seen before. Vocally too she showed a great singing voice that also bizarrely sounds almost identical to her daughter (whose father directed this film). She's the younger sister and daughter (though not the youngest) but seems to know better than anyone else how to manipulate her family into her way of thinking. She's also a decent person, when she finds out that a girl she thought had wronged her brother was in fact not as bad as she thought, she accepts the trickery that she'd planned on her for herself, sticking herself with the worst dancing partners for the evening.

The songs are memorable and catchy (though the Trolly song was easily the highlight of the film, supposedly recorded in one take it's a very impressive number both musically and visually. Overall this is the type of film that I have problems criticising for anything other than the general story, which I found I had very little interest in. Not necessarily adverse to romance or musicals, or indeed period films, it was the combination of all three, and the fairly standard story of people struggling with love (despite the fact that they all had people who loved them pretty much from the offset) that got to me. I couldn't relate. However, if you're a fan of these types of films then this is a strong one in the genre.