Meet Me in St. Louis - 1944

Meet Me in St. Louis Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.
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Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) is a delightful, classic, nostalgic, poignant, and romanticized musical film - and one of the greatest musicals ever made. It tells the story of a turn-of-the-century family in suburban, midwestern St. Louis of 1903, who live in a stylish Edwardian home at 5135 Kensington Avenue. The city, and the well-to-do Smith family (with four beautiful daughters), is on the verge of hosting (and celebrating) the arrival of the spectacular 1904 World's Fair. However, the family's head of the house is beckoned to New York due to a job promotion - an uprooting move that threatens to indelibly change the lives of the family members forever. Filmed during WWII, the decision to remain in St. Louis in the film's conclusion affirmed that nothing will be altered for the American family.

This gem of cinematic, picture-postcard Americana and youthful romance, is richly filmed in Technicolor. It marked the beginning of the golden age of MGM musicals (and producer Arthur Freed's unit), and ultimately became the second most successful film for MGM (behind Gone With the Wind (1939)).

The story is based on the book of the same name from Sally Benson's memoirs of her life in St. Louis, Missouri from 1903-4 - they were recalled and written in multiple issues of The New Yorker Magazine from 1941-1942 (originally published under the title "5135 Kensington" and eventually gathered together as The Kensington Stories). The charming stories, a dozen in all to represent each of the twelve months of the year, are expressed in the film in its musical numbers. The film abandoned the 'put-on-a-show' mentality of so many other backstage song/dance films. Its songs and wonderful performances are carefully and naturally integrated into the story of the close-knit family's day-to-day life, and serve to advance the action and plot from one season to the next.