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1944 American musical film by Vincente Minnelli
the 1944 film

Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 American Christmas musical film made by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (most commonly referred to as the World's Fair) in the spring of 1904. The film stars Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, June Lockhart and Joan Carroll. The film was adapted by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe from a series of short stories by Sally Benson originally published in The New Yorker magazine called "The Kensington Stories" and later in novel form as Meet Me in St. Louis. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who met Garland on the set and later married her. Tony Award winning designer Lemuel Ayers served as the film's art director. Upon its release, Meet Me in St. Louis was both a critical and a commercial success. It became the second highest grossing film of 1944, behind only Going My Way, and was also MGM's most successful musical of the 1940s. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Garland debuted the standards "The Trolley Song", "The Boy Next Door" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", all written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane for the film, and all of which became hits after the film was released. The film's producer Arthur Freed also wrote and performed one of the songs.

The backdrop for the film is St. Louis, Missouri, in the year preceding the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair. In the summer of 1903, the Smith family leads a comfortable upper middle class life. Alonzo Smith and his wife Anna have four daughters: Rose, Esther, Agnes and Tootie, and a son, Lon Jr. Esther, the second oldest daughter, is in love with the boy next door, John Truett, although he does not notice her at first. Tootie rides with iceman Mr. Neely and debates whether St. Louis is the nation's top city. Rose, the eldest daughter, hopes in vain to receive a marriage proposal from Warren Sheffield. Esther finally meets John properly when he is a guest at the Smiths' party and hopes to meet him again on a trolley ride to the construction site of the World's Fair. On Halloween, Tootie and Agnes attend a bonfire. Later, after Tootie appears with a split lip and lost tooth, she claims that John tried to kill her. Esther confronts John, physically attacking and scolding him. After Esther returns, Tootie and Agnes confess the truth: John was trying to protect them from the police after a dangerous prank went wrong. Upon learning the truth, Esther apologizes to John and he kisses her. Mr. Smith announces that he is to be sent to New York City on business and they will all move there after Christmas. The family is devastated by the news, especially Rose and Esther, whose romances, friendships and educational plans are threatened. Esther is also aghast because they will miss the World's Fair. Although Mrs. Smith is also upset, she reconciles with her husband and they sing a tender duet at the piano. An elegant ball takes place on Christmas Eve. John cannot take Esther because he was too late to pick up his tuxedo. Esther is relieved when her grandfather offers to take her to the ball instead. At the ball, Esther and Rose plot to ruin the evening of Warren's date Lucille Ballard by filling her dance card with losers. They are surprised to find that Lucille is warm, friendly, and not a snob. She suggests that Warren should be with Rose, allowing her to be with Lon. Esther switches her dance card with Lucille's and takes on the clumsy and awkward partners. After being rescued by Grandpa, Esther is overjoyed when John appears in a tuxedo and they dance for the rest of the evening. Later, John proposes to Esther and she accepts, but their future is uncertain because she must still move to New York. Esther returns home to find Tootie waiting impatiently for Santa Claus and worrying about whether she can bring all her toys with her to New York. After Esther sings Tootie a poignant rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", an inconsolable Tootie destroys the snowmen that they must leave behind. Esther reassures Tootie that they will be together no matter where they go. Mr. Smith, who has witnessed the girls outside, begins to have second thoughts. After thinking in the living room, he summons the family downstairs and announces that they will not move to New York, much to everyone's surprise and joy. Warren rushes into the Smith home, declares his love for Rose, and announces that they will marry at the first possible opportunity. Realizing that it is now Christmas, the Smiths celebrate. The next spring, at the World's Fair, the family gathers overlooking the Grand Lagoon just as thousands of lights around the grand pavilion are illuminated.

The film is based on "The Kensington Stories", a series of sentimental family stories by Sally Benson that appeared in The New Yorker in 1942 and later in novel form as Meet Me in St. Louis. Shortly after the publication of the stories, Arthur Freed, who had enjoyed previous success with Judy Garland in MGM musicals, convinced studio head Louis B. Mayer to purchase the film rights for $25,000, and Benson was also hired to work on the screen adaptation. The idea for the film was also inspired by Life with Father, a nostalgic family play that had been running on Broadway to great success and acclaim since 1939. Production delays were also caused by illnesses suffered by O'Brien, Mary Astor (pneumonia) and Joan Carroll (appendicitis), but Minnelli used the delays to prepare O'Brien's most demanding and important scenes. Severe rains and flooding in the Los Angeles region caused further delays in the production of exterior scenes. Filming began on December 1, 1943 and was completed on April 7, 1944, behind schedule and with a final budget near $1.8 million. The first rough cut exceeded two hours in length, so the writers suggested edits that brought the film down to 113 minutes for its preview screenings in the summer of 1944. MGM, encouraged by overwhelmingly positive audience previews, held the film's release for the Christmas season. The premiere was held in St. Louis on November 22, 1944, and at New York's Astor Theatre one week later.

Upon its 1944 release, Meet Me in St. Louis was a gigantic critical and commercial success. During its initial theatrical release, it earned a then massive $5,016,000 in the US and Canada and $1,550,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $2,359,000. Time called Meet Me in St. Louis "one of the year's prettiest pictures" and noted: "Technicolor has seldom been more affectionately used than in its registrations of the sober mahoganies and tender muslins and benign gaslights of the period. Now & then, too, the film gets well beyond the charm of mere tableau for short flights in the empyrean of genuine domestic poetry. These triumphs are creditable mainly to the intensity and grace of Margaret O'Brien and to the ability of director Minnelli & Co. to get the best out of her." O'Brien drew further praise from Time: "[Her] song and her cakewalk done in a nightgown at a grown up party, are entrancing acts. Her self terrified Halloween adventures richly set against firelight, dark streets, and the rusty confabulations of fallen leaves, bring this section of the film very near the first rate." Writing in The New Yorker, Wolcott Gibbs praised the film as "extremely attractive" and called the dialogue "funny in a sense rather rare in the movies," although he felt that the film was too long. In 2005, Richard Schickel included the film in Time. com's list of the 100 best films, saying: "It had wonderful songs [and] a sweetly unneurotic performance by Judy Garland Despite its nostalgic charm, Minnelli infused the piece with a dreamy, occasionally surreal, darkness and it remains, for some of us, the greatest of American movie musicals." Film historian Karina Longworth also noted its fantastical and surreal elements, calling it "a gothic art film in disguise as a standard Metro Goldwyn Mayer musical". Producer Arthur Freed remarked: "Meet Me in St. Louis is my personal favorite. I got along wonderfully with Judy, but the only time we were ever on the outs was when we did this film. She didn't want to do the picture. Even her mother came to me about it. We bumped into some trouble with some opinions – Eddie Mannix, the studio manager, thought the Halloween sequence was wrong, but it was left in. There was a song that Rodgers and Hammerstein had written, called Boys and Girls Like You and Me, that Judy did wonderfully, but it slowed up the picture and it was cut out. After the preview of the completed film, Judy came over to me and said, 'Arthur, remind me not to tell you what kind of pictures to make.' [It] was the biggest grosser Metro had up to that time, except for Gone With the Wind." The film holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 80 reviews with an average score of 8.80/10. 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."

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture and Best Music, Song (Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin for "The Trolley Song"). Margaret O'Brien received an Academy Juvenile Award for her work in Meet Me in St. Louis and several other films of the same year. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The American Film Institute ranked the film 10th on its AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list. Two songs from the film were included in the AFI's 100 Years 100 Songs list ("The Trolley Song" at #26 and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" at #76).

Meet Me in St. Louis was remade in 1959 for television, starring Tab Hunter, Jane Powell, Jeanne Crain, Patty Duke, Walter Pidgeon, Ed Wynn and Myrna Loy. It was directed by George Schaefer from the original Brecher and Finklehoffe screenplay. Meet Me in St. Louis was remade again for television in 1966. This was a non musical version starring Shelley Fabares, Celeste Holm, Larry Merrill, Judy Land, Reta Shaw, Tammy Locke and Morgan Brittany. It was directed by Alan D. Courtney from a script written by Sally Benson and was intended as a pilot for a television series that failed to materialize. It was later included as a special feature on the two disc DVD set released in 2004. A Broadway musical based on the film was produced in 1989, with additional songs.

The late 19th century vintage carousel in the film was located at the Boblo Island Amusement Park in Amherstburg, Ontario until the park closed in September 1993. It was dismantled and sold to private collectors. Gerald Kaufman wrote a study of the film, with the same title, which was published by the British Film Institute in 1994. The Smith family's former house at 5135 Kensington Avenue in St. Louis no longer exists. After being sold, it fell into disrepair, eventually became uninhabitable, and was demolished in 1994. The backlot house used as the exterior of the Smiths' family home later was used in the film Cheaper by the Dozen as the Gilbreths' family home.

"The Trolley Song" is performed regularly by performers on Main Street, U. S. A. at the Disney Parks and Resorts. The film's snowmen scene was parodied in the December 16, 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live, with comedians Chloe Troast and Kate McKinnon playing the characters of Ester Smith and Tootie Smith, respectively.