Review of Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) by Riley H — 30 Apr 2010

This is Hollywood at its escapist worst. It's as if the production code and the musical genre made it okay to forget about plot. The jokes are almost all so dated that they fall flat. The musical numbers are typical of the era.

One has become a standard, but I don't think that makes the movie any better. It all heads toward a great climax where we learn that St. Louis (and by extension, any other American city that isn't New York) is a pretty great place to live after all.

So we can feel pretty gosh darn swell about living in another city that isn't New York. Isn't that great? Thanks Hollywood. Paid for by the Tourism Bureau of St. Louis.