Starring Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, Tom Drake, Marjorie Main, Harry Davenport, June Lockhart, Henry H. Daniels Jr., Joan Carroll, Hugh Marlowe, Robert Sully
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Expectations: High.
Meet Me in St. Louis chronicles one year in the life of the Smith family (1903 if we’re being exact). The story begins one year before the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (AKA the St. Louis World’s Fair), and the Smith family is suitably excited for this amazing development to come to their city. But the World’s Fair is merely the backdrop to the family’s tale, although it does end up reinforcing the themes that the rest of the film brings up. Anyway, the important thing to take away from the beginning of the film is that the Smith family is a strong family unit in love with St. Louis, and the potential it shows in the run-up to the World’s Fair.
Esther (Judy Garland) and Rose Smith (Lucille Bremer) are probably more excited about the prospect of future husbands, though. The girls are both still in high school, but yet Rose is “getting older” and in fear of becoming an old maid. Rose has an older suitor at college in New York on the hook, but he has yet to propose or really make any definitive statement about how he feels for Rose. Esther, however, has her sights on the boy who just moved in next door, John Truett (Tom Drake). She’s so smitten with him that she vows to make him kiss her at an upcoming house party, on the first night they formally meet face-to-face.