Part Two of Meet Me In St. Louis

My greatest pleasure in St. Louis' Halloween section has always been the Braukoffs, having grown up in a neighborhood with latter-day counterparts in abundance. An all-time fave-for-me shot is Tootie’s first glimpse through their window (seated Mrs. Braukoff is a particularly frightful image). I grew up near several houses as forbidding and might readily have imagined certain of my neighbors with boxes of dead cats. The Braukoffs seem less sinister than people who just want to be left alone. Ann and I talked a lot about them after watching Meet Me In St. Louis. She felt they were more sinned against than sinning, and might have been more sociable had the community not ostracized them so.

As it is, we get the impression that the Braukoffs have run out of patience with Kensington Avenue youth well before Tootie comes knocking at their door. In view of the couple's standing among neighbors, it probably comes as no surprise to Mr. Braukoff that she would throw flour in his face. For characters that appear so fleetingly, I’ve expended more thought on the Braukoffs than anyone else in Meet Me In St. Louis, maybe just for having encountered so many ominous (and maybe misunderstood?) figures like them.



Vincente Minnelli Directing The Halloween Sequence



Halloween concludes with a nicely disturbing segment wherein Tootie accuses John Truett of tearing open her lip. Meet Me In St. Louis at this point seems to be spiraling toward dark direction as the child recounts what sounds like a molestation by a boy next door we’re still not quite sure about (after all, he’s made no move to kiss Esther, despite her invitation). John’s exoneration is slow in coming. We spend nearly a reel imagining the worst. For having caused the mess, Tootie becomes herself a reasonable candidate for intervention. Such hysterical behavior and subsequent tearful business as knocking down snow people would today be addressed by way of Lithium or Zoloft regimen, putting paid to talk of doll cemeteries and rivers filled with dead bodies. Result: a twenty-first century Tootie neatly lobotomized and no further cause for family alarm.

I’m still not past this business of Rose dating her brother to the Christmas dance. The way it’s set up is distinctly creep-inducing. Did these actors realize their characters were siblings? Henry H. Daniels plays Lon. This was his first film. There wouldn’t be many more, and few of those saw him credited. Daniel’s line readings are weirdly fey. When he’s finally persuaded to ask his sister to the prom, they both play it way too boy-girl for comfort. It’s always fun watching first-time viewers squirm a little during all this. Then there’s the added fill-up of Esther being fitted for her corset in the next scene. Turn off the picture and just listen to the sound next time. It’s as close as you’ll get to a moment of Judy ecstasy beyond what she conveyed singing on stage and screen.

Why couldn’t John simply borrow Grandpa’s tuxedo? That would have been too cruel, I know, but the thought always occurs to me. As it is, the old man has the number of every geek and social outcast in St. Louis. Clinton Badger, Hugo Borvis, Sydney Gorcey. Everyone’s a perfect horror, says Rose (another reason I find her largely unsympathetic). Actually, there are several Clinton Badgers in Meet Me In St. Louis. Some wear glasses and all are adjudged not good enough to dance with the Smith girls (one is unbilled Our Gang alumna Joe Cobb). Esther rigs nemesis Lucille Ballard’s dance card so that she’ll be stuck with the three pariahs. There’s a shot of them looking on with approval, from vantage point of the wallflower’s section, as Esther waltzes off happily with late-arriving John Truett. A follow-up to Meet Me In St. Louis might profitably have explored the lives of Clinton, Hugo, and Sydney, as I’ve no doubt many audience members would have more readily identified with them.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas as sung by Judy makes me a little weepy even when I hear it in the car. As lead-up to the big emotional meltdown and cathartic finish of Meet Me In St. Louis, this is the song remembered best from the film. That it’s become a Yule standard helps too. Part of my enduring sentiment for MMISL comes of having lucked into a brand new 16mm print in late autumn of 1976. To own such a blockbuster was as intoxicating as Christmas morning itself, especially as we scarcely had St. Louis on the syndicated tube around here. There was a space heater I ran while projecting it that glowed fireplace red. Having Meet Me In St. Louis around the house enhanced a lot of Christmases. If there was ever justification for collecting film in those days, this one supplied it. Warners' new Blu-Ray looks better than most any print, but there’s no duplicating the exhilaration of threading up a rarity seemingly unavailable to anyone else at the time. I wonder if CBS ever considered leasing St. Louis for possible Christmas runs after their 1956 success with The Wizard Of Oz. Trade press at the time doubted any oldie could do perennial duty like Oz. Nothing else was in its class, they said. Still, there might be evergreen status to this day for Meet Me In St. Louis had one of the networks elected to play it yearly for the holidays.

MGM's St. Louis street would serve as backlot shrine and setting for nostalgic themes explored by filmmakers to come. One of them was Rod Serling, who walked down Kensington and saw visions of his own Binghamton, NY upbringing. How many others responded similarly? Serling would translate his sentiment to a Twilight Zone episode called Walking Distance, wherein ad exec Gig Young reclaims simplicity of youth via time travel back to "Homewood," which could stand in for nearly anyplace one was raised during the first half of the 20th Century, being perhaps best represented by familiar street and sets that bred Meet Me In St. Louis (Young's character points out John Truett's MMISL house as the one he grew up in). The culture has changed enough by 2011 for that to no longer be the case, but for many Twilight Zone viewers in 1959 at least, there was, in those St. Louis false-fronts, cherished link back to lives of their own.