Meet Me in St. Louis

1944 piece of technicolor crap

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Attorney Smith lives in St. Louis with his wife and four daughters, one of them who might be the devil. They spend most of their time singing and being carefree, but suddenly, Dad announces that they're going to move to New York City. Oh, snap! This depresses everybody!

Judy Garland is sort of homely and has a terrible voice. Shirley Temple should have played Esther in this movie. There really isn't enough story here to make an entire movie which is why, I guess, they have to stuff in a bunch of songs. This might have been the most excruciating movie experience of the year for me, mostly because of the disturbing and obnoxious performance of child actress Margaret O'Brien as "Tootie," the only character I've watched this year with this almost overwhelming desire to hit repeatedly with a shovel. Seriously, what the hell is going on with Tootie? She's psychologically disturbed! The Halloween scene in which she's burning furniture and throwing flour in people's faces for no good reason is bad enough, but when she talks openly about trying to murder people? Yikes! If I would have watched this movie seventeen years ago, this kid would have inspired me to castrate myself so that I wouldn't accidentally have children. In addition to children, this movie also made me hate the following:

--Music
--St. Louis, a city I've always loved
--Fairs
--Love
--Color
--The Wizard of Oz
--Frills
--My wife
--Snowmen
--Christmas
--Halloween
--Trolleys
--White people
--Square dancing
--Alec Baldwin
--1903
--America
--The Facts of Life
It's been a couple days, but Meet Me in St. Louis seems to have this ability to continue making me suffer long after it's ended. It's like a bad taste in my soul. How this movie didn't lead to murder-suicide must be some kind of Christmas miracle.

Kill it with a shovel:

1 comment:

cory said...

I saw this long, long ago and seem to remember liking it, but the fact that I have grown much more cynical, and your hilarious review trashed it have made me too cautious to give it a grade. It is considered a classic. I don't think it is as bad as you do, but I would have to watch it again to make an argument. I have no urge to do that.