Meet Me In St. Louis (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Can't beat an old time classic
Review: I love these old movies! And now that they are all on DVD even better...

Rating:
Summary: Luscious to look at. Incredible to listen to. A must-have!
Review: Minnelli makes magic as he falls in love with his leading lady while she clangs on the Trolley for the Boy Next Door. This is the stuff that dreams are made of, in a sumptuous DVD with loads of extras that is a must-have for MGM musical fans.

Grab it!

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Summary: Have Yourself a Merry Little Movie...
Review: This is indeed a merry little movie! Judy Garland, Margaret O' Brien, Leon Ames, Mary Astor and Tom Drake. What else do you want? Meet Me In St. Lois was actually really famous for it's score and wonderful songs such as: Meet Me In ST. Lois, The Boy Next Door, The Trolley Song, Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas... This movies plot is based around the Smith's family moving to New York. No one wants to except for the somewhat selfish dad (Leon Ames. Oh, such glorious days where people DERESSED to go to the wonderful World's Fair

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Summary: A musical period piece and Bremer's best part
Review: This film, the highwater mark of artistry at the Freed Unit at MGM, deserves the lavish restoration it has received here in this 2 disc DVD version. It was directed with impeccable taste by Vincente Minnelli; indeed the director exceeds himself by, at times, going beyond taste and exploring the darker sides of the human psyche, especially in the scenes he gives to your Margaret O'Brien, playing the little girl "Tootie" as no young girl had ever been portrayed in the movies before. (The great film critic James Agee wrote a beautiful encomium of O'Brien's performance that you can read in AGEE ON FILM.) It also seems that Minnelli, devoted to Judy Garland, and really a visionary in seeing things in her that no one had previously bothered to locate, invested her with a confidence and a style that really paid off for not only had she never acted better, but she never looked more beautiful, before or after IMHO.

Liza introduces the movie, she doesn't look so bad, odd to think she must be ages older than Judy when she died. On the second disc you get some documentaries and one of them is great because it preserves the comments made by some of the cast members who have passed on, especially Lucile Bremer, who plays Rose, Esther's older sister and who must have died about 8 years ago if I remember right. Poor Lucile Bremer! This was her first movie, what a smashing debut and she looks so attractive, if a little strange, and then poor thing made only three more movies for the Freed Unit and then she had to find work in Mexico, the UK, and then right to Poverty Row for the "HUMAN GORILLA" and her whole career was over a mere four years after it began! People whispered that she had gotten her MGM contract because she was the back street "date" of Arthur Freed himself, but actually she was kind of like Marion Davies, you know, maligned but actually when you watch her she's really quite talented and lovely and funny. Some say she looks kind of like Joan Crawford (hard and cold) and that she moves like a python, but that's fair neither to Crawford nor to the python species. If you don't like her as Rose, you certainly won't like her in YOLANDA AND THE THIEF or RUTHLESS.

But all in all, MEET ME in ST. LOUIS is grand. Don't miss out on this Technicolor Valentine to three great actresses (and Mary Astor too who sings up a storm in her big number "You and I.")

Rating:
Summary: IT'S JUDY, FOLKS!
Review: A GREAT MOVIE MADE EVEN BETTER WITH TECHNOLOGY. LOOKS AND SOUNDS GREAT. NICE EXTRAS ALSO. THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER JUDY. BUY THIS.