Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien Impeccably Meet in Minnelli's Masterful St. Louis

             A beautiful slice of early 20^th Century Americana, which movie-loving WWII audiences turned out for in droves, 1944’s Meet Me in St. Louis offers a supremely tuneful, charming tale involving a year in the life of the Smiths, leading up to the 1904 World’s Fair. Crafted with care and exquisite taste by director Vincente Minnelli, St. Louis (based on Sally Benson’s 1942 novel, which originally appeared as a series of vignettes in The New Yorker) blends humor, drama, romance, nostalgia and a great roster of songs, both of the period and newer compositions by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, in lovingly recreating a specific time and place, as the viewer is drawn into the Smiths’ personal successes and travails throughout the 1903-1904 seasons. With typical MGM glossy production values (via Arthur Freed and Hal Pereira) ideally utilized, lush Technicolor cinematography by George J. Folsey, an era-evoking score by George Stoll in sync with each season presented, and a colorful, entertaining screenplay by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe that artfully incorporates key songs into the proceedings, St. Louis is the rare original film musical that works on every level, with credibility never strained as a variety of scenarios and moods are conveyed with freshness and creativity by Minnelli and a glorious cast.

                For Minnelli, St. Louis served as affirmation he would be the major player at MGM he indeed became for the next two decades, after making an impact via his directional debut at the studio the previous year via Cabin in the Sky. Starting out in theater as a costume and set designer (at no less than Radio City Music Hall) and artistic director for multiple productions and also working at Paramount Studios in the 1930’s prior to his MGM tenure, Minnelli’s taste, style and exacting process with each film would serve in him well in a variety of genres, and this is clearly evident in St. Louis. Although at heart a musical, there are also sequences of drama, suspense (specifically the Halloween passage) and comedy that lend much more believability and truth to the characters and situations involving the Smith’s strong family dynamic than normally found in a musical. He seamlessly switches from one season to the next without harming the overall tone of the film and stages each musical number and set piece with skill and beauty. Minnelli would continue to turn out Class A productions at MGM, including two Oscar-winning Best Pictures, An American in Paris and Gigi, which also brought Minnelli his Best Director Academy Award. Although his output would become more uneven in terms of box-office returns and critical reaction as the Studio Era waned in the 1960’s, the superb quality of Minnelli’s work during his peak years at MGM stand tall among the most entertaining and enduring movies of their day, with St. Louis holding a chief position among his oeuvre.

                By 1944, Judy Garland was near her apex as one of MGM’s top talents and box-office names, after achieving stardom with The Wizard of Oz and a string of ideal outings with Mickey Rooney in light musicals, including possible hitting their peak as a team via the previous year’s Girl Crazy. With St. Louis, Garland’s stock among the Hollywood elite would continue its steep rise, with her ingratiating, touching and humorous playing and unmatched vocal prowess creating one of her signature performances as the romantic, jaunty and alert Esther Smith. Working in flawless accord with Minnelli after an uneasy start, the director shows Garland to her best advantage, and at her loveliest in every shot, and his leading lady consistently rewards him with a seemingly easy, natural professional grace in each scene, incorporating each of Esther’s changing moods in deft, believable fashion. As for her big musical numbers, Garland switches from melancholic while Esther yearns for “The Boy Next Door” to ebullience in the uplifting “The Trolley Song,” expertly staged by Minnelli on the title vehicle, and possibly the liveliest moment in the film, then back to a more somber rendering for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” as Esther ponders the family’s future while serenading a downcast Tootie. After her triumph in St. Louis, Garland would reteam with Minnelli for possibly even better work in 1945’s The Clock, one of the best WWII romances, while romance was in the air as well off-screen, with Garland and Minnelli marrying in 1945. Garland would go on to more success at MGM with The Harvey Girls, Easter Parade and In the Good Old Summertime, before leaving the studio after 1950’s Summer Stock, going on to cement her legend as one of the centuries’ finest performers with constant concert work on stage, including a legendary Carnegie Hall outing in 1961, a recording of which took Garland to the top of the Billboard album chart and won her richly-deserved Grammys, and occasional forays back into film, with many still of the mindset Garland warranted another top award for her prime post-MGM movie, 1954’s A Star is Born. A second Oscar nomination came for stark work in Judgement at Nuremberg, then Garland took on the onerous task of doing a television show during the 1963-64 season, before continuing as a headliner on stage and television until her passing in 1969 at age 47.

                Margaret O’Brien found herself a sudden star at MGM as, after gaining a bit in the Garland-Rooney 1941 tuner Babes on Broadway, she was selected for the title role in 1942’s Journey for Maragret, wherein the five-year-old astounded critics and audiences by displaying some of the best dramatic gifts ever seen by a moppet on film. Duly impressed and knowing what they had, MGM swiftly maximized her innate, prodigious thespian skills in top productions such as Madame Curie, Lost Angel and The Canterville Ghost (and on loan-out to 20^th Century Fox for Jane Eyre, wherein O’Brien impressed along with two other usually gifted child thespians, Peggy Ann Garner and Elizabeth Taylor) before St. Louis offered the precocious talent her most iconic role. As Tootie, the Smith’s inquisitive, somewhat morbid youngest (Tootie explains her doll has four fatal diseases) O’Brien handles her choice assignment with a minimum of cuteness and maximum conviction. She pairs beguilingly with Garland for the “Under the Bamboo Tree” number and is mesmerizing in the Halloween segment Minnelli artfully builds around Tootie and her desire for acceptance by the older children in her group. O’Brien goes even deeper in the movie’s most piercing emotional moment, wherein Tootie destroys her “snow people” while hysterically sobbing to Esther she’d rather kill them if they can’t move with the family to New York. The depth of feeling O’Brien exhibits in this extraordinary scene powerfully resonates with a viewer, making it easy to understand why O’Brien was rated the preeminent child star of her era, both in terms of skill and audience appeal, as O’Brien placed in the Quigley poll of Top Ten Box Office stars for 1945 and 1946, following her ascendancy to top-tier stardom via St. Louis. O’Brien would remain a top draw for the rest of the decade, with Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (opposite another great child star, Jackie Jenkins) and Little Women two of her best efforts, before the onslaught of adolescence found O’Brien moving on to stage and television work, with outstanding comic work in George Cukor’s 1960 Heller in Pink Tights providing a later-career screen highlight for O’Brien.

                As Esther’s intended, John Truitt, Tom Drake also gains his signature role, lending appropriate boyish charm to the proceedings and matching up very well with Garland. Mary Astor brings warmth and strength to her portrayal of the matriarch of the family, while Leon Ames as Mr. Smith is amusingly blustery for most of the film, before sharing some calmer, moving moments with Astor and others as more serious issues are addressed by the Smiths. Lucille Bremer, owning a beauty and poise exactly right for the period, makes a lovely impression as Esther’s older, marriage-minded sister Rose, leading to her teaming up with no less than Fred Astaire onscreen directly after her impact in St. Louis. Marjorie Main and Chill Willis add humor to the film, utilizing their colorful, patented rural personas to great effect, while young Joan Carroll and mature Harry Davenport also help to keep the tone light and lively. Finally, Hugh Marlowe and June Lockhart can briefly be seen to good advantage in early roles.

                Released in November of 1944, St. Louis quickly became one of the top hits of the war years, with the January 5, 1949 Variety “All-Time Top Grossers” list placing the film second in revenue for 1944 to Going My Way. The movie also gained placement on the National Board of Review’s Top Ten list, with O’Brien mentioned on the “Best Acting” list, and garnered four Oscar nominations (for Adapted Screenplay, Color Cinematography, Score and Best Song for “The Trolley Song”), while O’Brien won a special Oscar for Best Juvenile. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has of course gone on to become a Christmas standard, in the process helping St. Louis to also become a holiday perennial, with viewings of the movie every Yuletide season on TCM and elsewhere exposing the classic to new generations. Meet Me in St. Louis’ ability to captivate, amuse and move audiences as impactfully as it did on initial release attests to the sublime, enduring work Minnelli and company generated while creating one of the best film musicals and holiday-themed entertainments ever. 

Judy Garland Follows the Road to Cinematic Immortality in The Wizard of Oz

              One of the most perfectly crafted and renowned films ever produced by Hollywood, 1939’s The Wizard of stands tall in the pantheon of Classic Hollywood films. Based on the 1900 novel by Frank Baum, director Victor Fleming (having one of the all-time banner years, with Gone with the Wind also on his roster), working with top MGM production values across the board, somehow manages to pull all the creative forces involved in this monumental undertaking into a cohesive, gratifying whole, allowing the film to convincingly shift from the early sepia-toned Kansas sequences to the florid Technicolored fantasy of Oz, with all its equally colorful characters, without any awkwardness or sense of phoniness coming into play. One of the greatest assembled casts and original music (composed by Harold Arlen, adapted by Herbert Stothart, with ingenious lyrics by Edgar “Yip” Harburg) aid Fleming in bringing life, humor and conviction to the tale of young Dorothy Gale who, accompanied by her faithful dog Toto, encounters the denizens of Oz, and learns many life lessons in the process.

The seventeen-year-old Judy Garland was rapidly ascending at MGM in 1939, after first making an impression onscreen in 1936 via an appealing film debut (on loan out to 20^th Century Fox; MGM signed Garland in 1935) in Pigskin Parade, and alongside Deanna Durbin in the MGM short Every Sunday. Following much vaudeville work with her sisters, after a debut at the tender age of two singing “Jingle Bells,” the phenomenally gifted Garland would spend her early years at MGM learning her craft in a few programmers and larger-scale productions, including costarring with ideal partner Mickey Rooney for the first time in 1937’s Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry and stealing the show singing “Dear Mr. Gable” in Broadway Melody of 1938. Gaining this viable film experience, Garland was ready for the major breakthrough Oz granted her.

As the sensitive Dorothy Gale, Garland’s prodigious talent as a singer, dancer and powerhouse actor were given ample opportunity to shine. Using an emotionally-driven performance style, Garland is in beautiful synch with Dorothy’s every desire, from her yearning for a life “Over the Rainbow” to her quest to meet the Wizard in order to return home. Singing “Rainbow” with a plaintiveness, maturity and sincerity that would help establish the song as her signature tune, Garland expresses the dreamy longings for all those seeking happiness outside the norm. Interacting with her costars in a graceful, earnest manner, Garland’s believably “in the moment” throughout, allowing viewers to fully buy into the story’s fantastical premise as the awestruck Dorothy meets a wide variety of colorful Oz characters in creative, unusual surroundings. She adeptly alternates between joyful, comic musical sequences and interactions with some of the most convincing, riveting dramatic acting yet seen on film, as the tremulous Dorothy plunges the depths of despair when faced with serious conflict, causing audiences to strongly identify with Dorothy on an unusually personal level, and resulting in an unforgettable characterization that still stands as one of the ultimate performances committed to film.

After Oz, Garland immediately confirmed her status as one of the brightest new stars in film alongside Rooney in Babes in Arms, a major 1939 hit released just after Oz, and would go on to become one of MGM’s biggest draws in the 1940s in a slew of hit, Grade-A musicals, For Me and My Gal, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls and Easter Parade among them, with 1945’s The Clock (directed by husband Vincente Minnelli) showing what Garland could do dramatically, and as a romantic lead in a beautiful pairing with Robert Walker. Leaving MGM, which had worn the constantly in-demand Garland down with little regard for her welfare, after 1950’s Summer Stock, a revitalized Garland went on to conquer stage, film and television during the 1950’s and 1960’s (with 1954’s A Star is Born and her #1 1961 Judy at Carnegie Hall Grammy-winning album highlights), before her untimely passing at 47 in 1969, leaving behind a legacy unmatched in entertainment history.

Ray Bolger utilizes his dexterity and skill as a veteran dancer to fill the role of the Scarecrow, the animable, smarter-than-he-thinks colleague Dorothy first encounters on her path down the yellow brick road to Oz. The nimble Bolger adopts a pleasant, airy style to match the light-on-his-feet physicality he displays as the Scarecrow ambles his way along with Dorothy. Jack Haley also scores strongly as the dreamy, serene Tin Man, specifically impressing with his ability to remain dexterous dancing around during his “If I Only Had a Heart” number in one of film history’s most inhibiting costumes. As the Cowardly Lion, Bert Lahr uses his extensive vaudevillian background to squeeze every drop of comedy gold out the juicy character. Lahr’s gusto-ladened line readings (“Tell Me When It’s Over!” “I Wanna Go Home!”) prime mugging and all-out spontaneity, wherein he often appears to be adlibbing with fearless comic abandon, allows for some of the choicest laughs in the film, with Lahr still managing to work in beautiful synch with his trio of adroit costars.

Margaret Hamilton stakes her claim as one of the screen’s most sinister and electrifying miscreants as the Witched Witch of the West, who is green with envy over Dorothy’s possession of the prized ruby red slippers and determined to get them at any cost. Hamilton’s intense, fireball (literally, at one point) approach is so transfixingly real, her ability to terrify viewers of all ages has remained undiminished. In contrast, Billie Burke’s bubbly persona, sing-song vocal delivery and beatific appearance in a stunning pink gown as Glinda the Good Witch helps to assuage audiences’ qualms, although one wonders if Glinda might have offered Dorothy a little more info up front, regarding what to do at a fork in the road, how to utilize those slippers to take a fast track back home, etc. Finally, as Dorothy’s most loyal and true supporter, Toto, the gifted terrier Terry steals many moments and must be in the running for the most beloved pet in film history.

With Fleming’s firm hands at the helm, Oz overcame a plethora of challenges (such as cast changes and filming issues) to achieve timeless perfection on screen. Upon release in August of 1939, Oz gained solid box-office returns, but would not initially make back its understandably high cost of production. Aided by largely excellent critical notices, the film would fare well in at the Academy Awards in a landmark, very competitive year, scoring five regular Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Bets Art Direction and Best Special Effects, and richly-deserved wins for Best Original Score and Best Song. Judy Garland was bestowed a special Academy Juvenile Award (for both Oz and Babes in Arms), while the timeless appeal of the film has kept it a favorite among audiences for over eight decades, greatly assisted by regular television broadcasts starting in 1956, which continually reaped huge ratings while exposing the wonders of Oz to several generations. The movie has been popular via VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K presentations, often in elaborate special edition packages offering abundant extra features detailing the history of the film. In the process of becoming one of the cinema’s most beloved films, Oz has gained ever-increasing accolades, which include (among many others), placement among the inaugural films chosen by the National Film Registry for preservation; coming in at #6 and #10 on the American Film Institute’s 1998 and 2007 lists of the 100 Greatest Films; and gaining the #1 slot on the AFI’s 2004 list of best songs for “Over the Rainbow.” The film’s influence has spawned sequels and prequels, which have met with various degrees of success with critics and audiences, without any of them supplanting The Wizard of Oz in the hearts of fans old and new, with countless repeated viewings simply confirming Oz to be one of the greatest, most enchanting movies ever made.

                On another note, the newest take on the Oz legend to hit the Silver Screen, Wicked (based on the smash Broadway production culled from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel) covers the musical’s first act (Part II is coming next year) and serves as a prequel to Oz, starting with the demise of the Wicked Witch, then working back to tell the story of how the friendship between the outcast Elphaba and the popular Galinda evolved. Although the production is super-scale and at over 2.5 hours lacks some of the focus and charm of Oz, the sense of fantasy and joy found in the 1939 classic is strongly conveyed by director Jon M. Chu, with mega-talented stars Cynthia Erivo and Adriana Grande beautifully meshing to illustrate the depth of friendship existing between Galinda and Elphaba, while giving dynamic, moving and funny performances that keep the film centered and riveting (Chu, knowing what he had, wisely keeps the focus on Erivo and Grande). Wicked has met with major and deserved critical and box-office success, and it's easy to see the endearing 2024 film serving as a quality companion piece to the 1939 classic at many future viewings.

Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder Bring Comic Glory to Young Frankenstein

             A top contender for one of the most original and hilarious comedies to come out of Hollywood, 20^th Century-Fox’s Young Frankenstein from 1974 lovingly pays homage to the classic Universal films, while seamlessly blending riotous situations and dialogue to create one of the most satisfying entertainments of a rich cinematic decade. Director Mel Brooks, armed with an ace script (based on the famous Mary Shelley tale) he concocted with star Gene Wilder, fruitfully reteaming with Brooks after The Producers and their early 1974 smash, the un-PC but wildly funny Blazing Saddles, hones in his perchance for uncontrolled humor, but not to an extreme, thereby excellently setting up each gag while allowing his terrific cast to offer performances that remain convincingly true to the material, regardless of how subtle or wild circumstances evolve during the film’s fast-paced 104 minutes. Brooks illustrates great taste and precision in re-creating the tone of look (some of the original sets from the old Frankenstein films were utilized) of the previous horror classics, allowing fans of the genre to fully buy into Brooks’ lighter revisionist take on these beloved films, while introducing a new generation of audiences to key characters and storylines found therein.

As Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, Gene Wilder has perhaps his best screen opportunity to showcase the off-kilter comic sensibility at the center of many key Wilder performances. From the outset of his screen career, via a brief but vivid film debut in 1967’s landmark Bonnie and Clyde (after a series of Broadway roles, including originating Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Wilder exhibited a genius for portraying pent-up, edgy characters liable to explode in manic, panic-stricken, and hysterical fashion at any moment. In this vein Wilder scored his major breakthrough and won an Oscar nom as the highly strung Leo Bloom in The Producers, leading to his status as one of filmdom’s most adept comics, including playing in an admirably more mellow key (while still adding his uniquely bizarre tinge) in Willie Wonda and the Chocolate Factory and Saddles. For Frankenstein, from the opening scene its evident Wilder is in peak form, masterly nailing every comic bit, whether it be an exasperated eye roll, suppressed anger, or one of his classic outbursts, with the relish and skill of a born clown. Post-Frankenstein, Wilder would find continued success, specifically when pairing with the equally-talented Richard Pryor in two major hits, Silver Streak and in 1980’s Stir Crazy, before uneven output (with 1984’s The Lady in Red possibly his best offering during this period) would lead to Wilder exiting movies, with a final hurrah occurring via an Outstanding Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Emmy win for Will and Grace in 2003.

Marty Feldman also hit a cinematic peak as Igor, the doctor’s simultaneously impish and inane (yet well-meaning) right-hand man. Starting his career as a writer for British television and films, he gained fame as a performer in the late sixties, eventually landing his own BBC show, Marty, before turning to films as writer, director and (eventually, post- Frankenstein) star. Using his hugely expressive eyes and perfect timing, Feldman appears to be having a ball utilizing an all-out playing style as Igor, and his high spirits constantly bemuse viewers in infectious fashion, including directly addressing the camera, beautifully setting up jokes (“Walk this way,” “Could be raining,” “Abby Normal” etc.) and via a sudden Groucho Marx imitation for the ages. Feldman would build on the momentum from his major success as Igor throughout the rest of the decade, including a reteaming with Wilder the following year in Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother, working with Brooks again in the all-star Silent Movie, and in perhaps his best outing in the aforementioned mode of writer-director-star via 1977’s The Last Remake of Beau Geste, before his premature passing in 1982 at 48.

Madeline Kahn, continuing a spectacular run in films since her big screen debut in 1972’s What’s Up Doc?, followed by funny and touching Oscar-nominated work in Paper Moon and a beautiful send up of Marlene Dietrich in Saddles which would lead to Oscar nom #2, cemented her status as one of the 1970’s preeminent (with a nod to Barbra Streisand) and most talented screen comediennes with her sage, mock serious work as Frederick’s initially uptight fiancé Elizabeth, who loosens up considerably in one of the most amusing character arcs found in film. Kahn is clearly in her element, both as the reserved, snobbish Elizabeth and her liberated counterpoint, mixing zany comedy with an above-it-all air in the early scenes, before memorably meeting up with the monster, resulting in her operatic trilling of “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,” to gain some of the movie’s biggest laughs. After her triumph here, Kahn would alternate between films, reteaming with Brooks for High Anxiety and History of the World, Part 1, while winning Emmy and Tony awards for her work in television and on Broadway, respectfully, before exiting movies with lovely dramatic work in Judy Berlin, just before her passing in 1999.

Toiling away for a decade in films and television, including work as a dancer in several Elvis Presley films (Viva Las Vegas chief among them) Teri Garr came to the fore in movies during 1974, first in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation before making a bigger impact in Frankenstein. As Inga, the doctor’s sweet and saucy assistant, Garr shows the comic instinct that would become a beguiling component of several major films to come, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tootsie, and admirably makes her presence felt while gaining plenty of laughs amid a cast of inspired clowns. Deftly instilling Inga with both a good natured, naïve quality and a more flirtatious side, Garr creates one of her most endearing portraits in her admirable screen catalog of friendly, eccentric blondes, setting her up for continue success in this mode throughout the rest of her richly rewarding career.

In other key roles, the imposing Peter Boyle, in the midst of one of the busier character actor careers in cinema after establishing himself with honest, harsh work as the title figure in 1970’s Joe, brings humor and tenderness to his work as the Monster, including dueting with Wilder for an unforgettable version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Cloris Leachman, enjoying a great early-1970’s run with an Oscar for dramatically-impactful work in The Last Picture Show and Emmys in a comic milieu for The Mary Tyler Moore Show scores in the later vein as Frau Blucker, the housekeeper so sinister horses neigh in fear at the sound of her name. As Inspector Kemp, who’s determined to destroy the monster, Kenneth Mars sports an accent so thick townspeople can’t follow him, and brings plenty of bemusement, particularly in a “dart-off” contest with Wilder. Lastly, the normally intense, dramatic Gene Hackman gets right into the high comic spirts of the piece as the gentle, lonely, blind woodsman who takes in the creature for a meal, with many guffaws ensuing.

                The December 1974 release of Young Frankenstein brought plenty to 20^th Century Fox’s bottom line, ending up with $34,600,000 in rentals (according to Variety), to place it near the top of year’s top money spinners, while also gaining Academy Award nominations for Best Sound and the expert Brooks/Wilder script. The film has only grown in popularity, status and influence (including Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” thanks to Feldman) in subsequent years. On the event of its 50^th anniversary it now rates for many as the top offering in Mel Brooks‘ filmography, placing at #13 on the American Film Institute’s “100 Years. . .100 Laughs” list of top comedies (with Saddles at #6). A rare comedy wherein a perfect fusion of cast, script, production values and direction guarantee its ability to draw laughs as copiously as upon its initial release will endure for another 50 years and beyond, Young Frankenstein serves as a prime choice for anyone looking for a glee-filled night at the movies, seasoned with a touch of the macabre.