(Vincente Minnelli, US 1944, 113 min., 35mm nitrate print)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Screenplay: Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe, based on stories by Sally Benson
Producer: Arthur Freed
Cinematographer: George Folsey
Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Lemuel Ayers, Jack Martin Smith
Songs: Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane
Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, Tom Drake,
Marjorie Main, Harry Davenport, June Lockhart, Harry H. Daniels, Jr., Joan Carroll, Hugh
Marlowe, Robert Sully, Chill Wills
Production company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Sound, Technicolor, 113 mins.
English language
Print source: Library of Congress, Culpeper, VA
Though producer Arthur Freed intended to make Meet Me in St. Louis “the most delightful piece
of Americana ever,” he faced negativity from both MGM executives, who didn’t see much merit
in the source material, and a twenty-one-year- old Judy Garland, who had moved on to adult
roles and felt playing another teenager would be a major step backward in her career. Freed
forged ahead nonetheless and, a top-notch creative team, turned a potential “Andy Hardy”-like
programmer into one of the studio’s most important films of the year.
Freed had convinced MGM to buy the rights to Sally Benson’s autobiographical New Yorker
vignettes chronicling a year in the lives of a St. Louis family and culminating in the city’s 1904
World’s Fair. After several script missteps (including one by Benson herself), the studio’s
concern over a clear storyline seemed justified, until writers Irving Brecher and Fred Finklehoffe
pulled a very small plot point from one of the stories—an impending move to New York
City—and made it the focus of the film.
MGM originally planned to simply redecorate its “Andy Hardy” street set with Victorian trim,
but Freed brought in Broadway set designer Lemuel Ayers, fresh from his success on
Oklahoma!. The entirely new “St. Louis Street” and Smith family home cost over $200,000, but
it was money well-spent: the house is practically a character in its own right, and director
Vincent Minnelli’s talent for decor and George Folsey’s intimate camerawork evoke every detail.
Meet Me in St. Louis was only Minnelli’s third film, and his first in color. Regardless, his
impressive background in theatrical set design and innovative use of Technicolor shaped every
aspect of the polished production—though he did manage to irritate art director Cedric Gibbons
and befuddle Technicolor consultant Natalie Kalmus. Minnelli’s sensitive direction of Garland,
meanwhile, won her over on-screen and off. They married in June 1945.
This original release print, deposited at the Library of Congress for copyright registration, is in
fairly good condition, with light to moderate emulsion and base scratches, 114 splices, and a
shrinkage of 0.7%–1.0%. It originally contained thirty-three gray slugs ranging from two to
fifteen frames in length (which accounts for most of the splices), possibly inserted in place of
damaged frames. They were removed prior to this screening.
Nancy Kauffman