Directed by Vincente Minnelli, Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) is the film in which Judy Garland grew up on screen. She plays Esther Smith, the second eldest daughter of a St. Louis family in 1903 and 1904, as the city prepares for the World’s Fair and the family faces the possibility of a move to New York that would break all their hearts.
Esther’s romance with the boy next door, played by Tom Drake, gives the film its tender centre, and Garland plays her with a new maturity, warm, funny and fully in command. The film follows the Smiths through the seasons, from summer outings to a Halloween night and a Christmas that has become famous in its own right, and Garland is at the heart of every one of them.
The songs are part of why the film endures. The Trolley Song, sung as Esther rides through St. Louis, is pure joy, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, sung by Garland to her little sister, played by Margaret O’Brien, has become a seasonal standard. Both were introduced in this film, and both are inseparable from Garland’s voice.
Meet Me in St. Louis was a turning point for Garland and for Minnelli, whom she would later marry. It is a film about home, about growing up, and about holding on to what matters, and Garland’s Esther remains one of her most beloved performances, the moment a child star became a great screen actress.
Image: Judy Garland, Over the Rainbow. Wikimedia Commons, public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Judy_Garland_Over_the_Rainbow_2.jpg