MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (WB, 1944) D: Vincente Minnelli, w/ Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien. Rating: NNNN Blu-ray package: NNNN Rating: NNNN
Two of Judy Garland’s best songs – The Trolley Song and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – plus Vincente Minnelli’s lavish visuals and assured camera style make this an immensely enjoyable movie whether or not you’re a fan of the star or genre.
Nothing much happens during the year we follow the life of a comfortable middle-class family in 1903 St. Louis. They’re set to move to New York but would rather not go. The two eldest daughters, Garland and Lucille Bremer, develop romances, while the youngest, Margaret O’Brien, a scene-stealer at age seven, indulges her comic morbid streak.
The commentary, stitched together from archival interviews with O’Brien, composer Hugh Martin and others, provides lots of production anecdotes. The MGM studio history is largely entertaining fluff, rich in period footage.
EXTRAS Commentary, making-of doc, Liza Minnelli intro, radio version, Garland trailers doc, MGM history doc, four-song CD, booklet. English, French, Spanish audio and subtitles.
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