Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Tom Drake, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, Joan Carroll and June Lockhart.
It was adapted by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe from a series of short stories written by Sally Benson that was originally published in "The New Yorker" magazine under the title "5135 Kensington" and later written in novel form as "Meet Me in St. Louis."
"Meet Me in St. Louis" takes place in St. Louis, Missouri (beginning in the summer of 1903 and lasting until the year leading up to the 1904 World's Fair) and focuses on the Smith family: Alonzo & Anna and their five children: daughters Rose, Esther, Agnes & Tootie and son Lon Jr.
Esther has a crush on John Truett, the boy next door, who doesn't notice her at first while Rose is expecting a phone call from Warren Sheffield, whom she hopes to be proposed marriage to.
Esther finally gets a chance to meet John when he is a guest at the Smiths' house party, but her chances of romancing him don't go to plan when (after all the guests are gone) while John is helping her turn off the gas lamps in the house & tells Esther that she uses the same perfume as his grandmother and she also has "a mighty strong grip for a girl".
Esther hopes to meet John again the following Friday on a trolley ride from the city to the construction site of the World Fair. Esther is sad when the trolley sets off without any sign of him, but cheers up when she sees him running to catch the trolley mid journey.
On Halloween, Tootie comes home injured & claims that John attacked her. Infuriated, Esther confronts John, physically attacks him & scolds him for being a bully. When Esther comes home, Tootie confesses that John never attacked her and that he was only protecting her from the police after a prank they pulled went wrong.
After learning the truth, Esther rushes over to John's house and apologizes to him & they end up sharing their first kiss. Alonzo announces to the family that he'll be sent to New York on business and will eventually move there. The family is devastated over the news, especially Rose & Esther (who is disappointed that they'll miss the World's Fair).
On Christmas Eve, Esther is devastated when John is unable to take her to an elegant ball because his tuxedo is at the tailor's and is unable to get it, but cheers up when her grandfather offers to take her instead.While at the ball, Esther fills up Lucille Ballard (a visiting girl)'s dance card with losers because she believes that Lucille is Rose's rival, but when it turns out that Lucille is interested in Lon, Esther switches the dance card and dances with the awkward & clumsy partners herself.
John eventually shows up at the ball after being able to get a tuxedo and he & Esther dance together for the rest of the night & John later proposes to Esther which she accepts. When Esther comes home from the ball, she sees that Tootie is upset, so Esther soothes her by singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," but Tootie is still upset over moving & runs outside into the cold to destroy the snowmen they made.
From an upstairs window, Alonzo sees Tootie's outburst and later announces that the Smiths won't be leaving St. Louis after all realizing how much moving away would affect his family. Meanwhile, Warren finally proposes to Rose.
Around April of 1904, the Smith family attends the World's Fair and it ends with the whole family (including Rose & Esther's fiances and Lon's new love interest) overlooking the Grand Lagoon at the center of the World's fair just as the thousands of lights are illuminating the grand pavilions.
Meet Me in St. Louis was a massive critical and commercial success, earning $5,016,000 in the US and Canada during its theatrical release and $1,550,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $2,359,000.
Reception
The film currently holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 33 reviews with an average score of 8.69/10. The site's critics consensus for the film reads, "A disarmingly sweet musical led by outstanding performances from Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien, Meet Me in St. Louis offers a holiday treat for all ages."
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The article or pieces of the original article was at Meet Me in St. Louis. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Warner Bros. Entertainment Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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