I think I have to disagree. If the characters are singing, I think by definition it’s a musical. Don’t get me wrong, I’m with you that I watch musicals more for the dancing than the music, but I just don’t think the dancing is necessary to the genre…it’s not a dansical, it’s a musical!
I’m never sure how to take that character, delightful as she is. They certainly seem indulgent of her, which I think is probably a fairly typical dynamic in a large family, regardless of the age. She is also apparently widely known to be a bit of a character, as evidenced by her amazing scene with Chill Wills on the ice wagon, and by the Colonel’s asking Rose to give Tootie his regards, as though he is well acquainted with her from somewhere. To me, she is symbolic of the “small-town” aspect of the film…even the random adults in town know her, apparently as a completely separate entity from the rest of her family. Giving her such an imaginative, outgoing, and precocious personality helps make that aspect of the film work for me.
Yeah, he’s great. For such a small role, he makes such a big impact, which is one of the things I like about this movie…even just a few lines seem to tell enough about a person so you seem to know exactly who they are and what their dynamic in the family is.
I had never seen this before - neat movie! There was less music and dancing than I expected, and I was a little surprised that Judy Garland sang most of the songs. Not that she wasn’t great, but in a “musical” I expect performances from more of the cast. (Although I just looked over the song list on the wikipedia page, and it doesn’t seem as Judy-dominated as I thought, so maybe it’s just my impression.)
The costuming was great. Whoever dressed Judy got a little carried away with tassels, but I loved the outfit with the plaid skirt she wore on the trolley, and she was gorgeous in that red dress she wore to the dance.
Tootie was adorable, but the Halloween scenes were weird. A five-yr-old out to derail a trolley? Throwing flour in people’s faces while screaming, “I hate you!”? Kids building a bonfire in the street?
The trolley car thing, I’m not sure of, but my husband and I were curious about these other Halloween activities, and did a little google research. Apparently they were fairly common at the turn of the century. (And in some places, still are…here’s a cite from this year from the UK, warning children against throwing eggs or flour on people. Sounds weird to me, but I guess it’s for real.
I’m afraid, by this logic, that The Wizard of Oz is not a musical. Or the all-singing Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Or Sweeney Todd. Or any Disney animated film. Or virtually any Bing Crosby “musical”.
I may prefer musicals that have dancing, but to say a musical isn’t a musical unless there’s dancing is like saying a romantic comedy isn’t a romantic comedy unless it involves heterosexuals or a horror film isn’t a horror film unless it features the supernatural. It’s arbitrary without being particularly defensible, IMHO.
I have to agree. I moved 8 Mile, Walk the Line, Footloose, Flashdance, and The Blues Brothers into the Musicals section of my vidstore soon after I was made manager.
If the Doris Day movie Love Me or Leave Me–in which all of the songs are a naturalistic part of the biography of blues singer Ruth Etting–is a musical, then so are Walk the Line and* 8 Mile*. And we weren’t really making musicals in the 80s and 90s . . . or were we? I think movies like *Footloose *and Flashdance were closet musicals; they look like ducks, they walk like ducks, they definitely *think *like ducks; they just don’t quack like ducks. Still, on balance, they’re ducks.
So on my days off, Monday and Tuesday, I took home the double disc edition of MMiSL, and subjected myself to the following, in the following order:
[ul]
[li]Meet Me in St. Louis[/li][li]Meet Me in St. Louis with commentary[/li][li]“Meet Me in St. Louis: The Making of an American Classic” (Narrated by Roddy McDowall)[/li][li]“Hollywood: The Dream Factory” documentary[/li][li]TCM Original “Becoming Attractions: Judy Garland”[/li][li]“Bubbles” (1930 Warner Bros. short featuring Judy Garland at age 7)[/li][li]“Skip To My Lou” (Rare 1941 musical short with Meet Me in St. Louis composers Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane)[/li][li]“Boys and Girls Like You and Me” outtake (re-construction using still photographs)[/li][li]Vincente Minnelli trailer gallery[/li][li]Introduction by Liza Minnelli (yikes!)[/li][/ul]
. . . and then, all that under my belt, I watched the movie again, paying as close attention as I could, frame by frame. I never enjoyed it more.
I have a hard time with movies like Footloose, Flashdance, and Dirty Dancing. I think there’s a stronger case to be made that a movie like Meet Me in St. Louis is a musical (where the characters sing but don’t dance), than one like Footloose (where the characters dance but don’t sing). The Blues Brothers is a little more of a classic musical, where the characters sing (well, some of them do), and the songs even advance the plot in some cases (like the “Think” scene with Aretha).
You’re not alone. Still, I include them in Musicals so that it doesn’t become this ghettoized gay-men-only section. Like, when I managed a bookstore, *Frankenstein *went in SF. People tend to think of such genres as extremely limited. By sending someone to the Musicals section to find 8 Mile or Footloose, I *may *get them to think differently about that section.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. After totally immersing myself in the movie for the last couple days, I have some new favorite scenes:
[ul]
[li]Halloween night, when Father Smith tells everyone they’re moving to New York (scary!), they all flounce off to pout, and Mother Smith calls them all back by playing an old-timey song about togetherness. (Although it’s actually faux-old-timey: written for this scene by the film’s champion and producer, Arthur Freed, who started life as a songwriter [“Singin in the Rain” ring any bells?] and went on to be the single human being most closely associated withe the Golden Age of MGM Musicals, almost all of which he produced. He also provides the vocal track that Leon Ames lipsyncs to.)[/li][li]The marriage proposals scene, which astonishingly enough, begins after the actual proposal! What an odd choice, in a movie filled with extremely odd choices, but it makes the scene that much more intimate and romantic, that even the audience isn’t privy to that special moment: it’s their secret. And of course our imagination of what the proposal was like will always be better than anything you could put on a movie screen.[/li][li]Christmas morning, when Father Smith announces they’re not moving to New York. The kids all immediately move past this momentous news–everything back to normal–and devote their full attention to unwrapping their presents. But Mother Smith is overwhelmed, and has to withdraw for a moment, to tearfully, joyfully, absorb the news. Only Father Smith sees as she lays her hand on a piece of furniture that is not, now, going to New York, and he lays his hand over hers as they share a silent moment.[/li][/ul]
That makes sense, and I’m not firmly on one side of the fence or the other on the subject. It’s just kind of a shame to me that the old style musical featuring real song-and-dance performers seems to be a thing of the past.
I’ve always been fond of that moment, too…to see that little sign of deep affection between a long-married couple. It’s really sweet. That’s really the neat thing about the movie, I think…you really do get these little glimpses into the relationships.
One scene I have developed a better appreciation for is the one where Tootie goes to throw the flour on their neighbor. The fear on her face is so real, and then the joy when she realizes the big kids are so impressed and that she’s initiated herself into their club…that kid was one fine actor.
One admittedly minor thing about Meet Me in St. Louis that bothers me every time I see it is that Margaret O’Brien cannot carry a tune! She’s an excellent actress, mind you, but she cannot sing and they didn’t even try to cover for her, imho. LOL Plus the song she does with Judy Garland bothers me although I know it was contemporary for the time period (1903-04). Her lack of vocal ability is most noticable then, unfortunately, next to Judy.
Total opposite here; it’d’ve pulled me out of the movie if she’d been looped by a “real” singer–she sounds just exactly like a 5-year-old should sound.
