Day 20 of 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks [CALENDAR] was Meet Me in St. Louis and I managed to watch it only a day late. GO ME I AM THE BEST. [Spoilers!]
I didn’t expect to like this one at all. Judy Garland movies always make me SO SAD and it’s a musical and there are lots of ladies looking for husbands. The entirety of my pre-planning notes for this one was, “ONLY WATCHING THIS FOR THE DAMN SONG” because “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is my very favorite Christmas song and I figured I ought to give the movie that spawned it a shot. But I ended up really kind of loving it.
There was way, way too much singing. Which is just, you know, something that happens when you watch a musical, but I even liked some of the songs that weren’t “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”! AND THE CHOREOGRAPHY STUFF WAS KIND OF OKAY! And I even liked the romancery stuff.
I loved Judy Garland a lot and I thought she was really sweet and beautiful and sassy, but not as sassy as her AMAZING sister Lucille Bremer. I LOVED ROSE/LUCILLE BREMER. Like, no joke. How did this woman not work more? I don’t understand? Sassy, beautiful, redhead with comedic timing and she only has like ten credits? Was the world not ready? I love you, Lucille Bremer, you should’ve been crazy famous.
I’m not going to talk about the sisterly scene of BDSM. I mean, who knew they could depict 1903 so progressively.
I loved that Tootie was just a BIG OL’ WEIRDO of a child, planning funerals for her dolls and riding on the ice truck and freaking out and smashing snowpeople because she can’t bear to leave St. Louis for New York.
Which, let’s establish that these are the worst fake snowpeople in history. I don’t think the set dressers at MGM had ever seen snow before. PROTIP: snow does not look like drywall spackle.
LET’S TALK ABOUT HALLOWEEN OKAY. Why were children in 1903 so MEAN. Going door to door throwing flour in people’s faces and stealing stuff and BURNING SHIT IN THE STREET.
Like, WHAT?! And all encouraged and dressed by their parents and neighbors. Go on, honey, GO OUT AND TORTURE EVERYONE AND STEAL STUFF AND CAUSE PROPERTY DAMAGE. What even? Those horrible, beastly children.
BUT, I loved Tootie getting injured and then lying and then Judy Garland going over and just SLAPPING her neighbor boyfriend like an absolutely out-of-control raging crazy person. YOU BEAT UP MY SISTER. SLAP SLAP SLAP. And then when she realizes she’s wrong he’s like, HEH IT’S OKAY. “No worse than football practice but it’s better with a girl.” And then KISSES HER. Like this is all a totally normal thing to have happen. WHAT IS GOING ON IN ST. LOUIS?!
I love Grandpa and I love the babely brother taking Rose to the dance. And I love Grandpa taking Judy Garland to the dance because Rose was like, “You have to go, I can’t handle twenty men alone!”
I loved Katie the Maid and Momma and the other sister who didn’t talk much and the brother and hot John Truitt and the really babely lady who shows up at the Christmas party and is like, OH ROSE THIS BRO LOVES YOU SO MUCH, I’M NOT HERE TO BE IN THE WAY! Because what a classy as hell broad.
I liked this movie so much that I barely took a half a page of notes. And most of those are from the party when everyone is dancing and singing because I could not get over how weird it would be to do that. Like, yo, living before television and radio and stuff was WEIRD and terrible. And I wouldn’t have been dancing in my living room and singing songs with my little sister and hiding hats in breadboxes. I would have been sitting in my room reading, praying for a technological revolution.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was perfect-beautiful-flawless-amazing-angelic. Judy Garland is a beautiful perfect queen angel from heaven. I was so moved, I too wanted to protest having to move to New York.
Look at me, loving old-timey movies and shit.
In conclusion, here’s my favorite version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”:
