These triumphs are creditable mainly to the intensity and grace of Margaret O'Brien and to the ability of director Minnelli & Co. to get the best out of her. Anxious to prove herself, Tootie, who is preoccupied with death, insists on calling feared neighbor Mr. Braukoff to his door and, following the local custom, blows flour in his face. This article is about the 1944 film. Sure that Warren, who is calling Rose at 6:30 p.m. that evening, is finally going to propose to her sister, Esther arranges with Katie, the Smiths' housekeeper, for the family to eat dinner early, so that Rose will have some privacy while talking on the telephone. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who met Garland on the set and later married her. Heartaches and laughter ensue. Esther rushes back to John's house to apologize, and John not only forgives her, but flirts with her as well. Film and Plot Synopsis. Upon request from Esther, Katie asks Mrs. Smith if they could have dinner an hour earlier because her sister is having troub… The elder Smith has four beautiful daughters, including a 17-year old Esther and sweet little Tootie. Embarrassed, Esther gives Lucille her dance card, then braves the clods.

Although Lon is enthusiastic about the transfer, which involves a promotion, Anna and the children react with shock and worry. Later on, John proposes to Esther and she accepts, but their future is uncertain because she must still move to New York. She didn't want to do the picture. Writing in The New Yorker, Wolcott Gibbs praised the film as "extremely attractive" and called the dialogue "funny in a sense rather rare in the movies," although he thought it was too long. Garland debuted the standards "The Trolley Song", "The Boy Next Door", and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", all of which became hits after the film was released. In St. Louis, Missouri in the summer of 1903, seventeen-year-old Esther Smith fantasizes about meeting John Truett, the shy boy-next-door, while her older sister Rose frets about her beau, Warren Sheffield, who is off at Yale. When Esther returns home, Tootie confesses that what really happened was that John was trying to protect Tootie and Agnes from the police after a dangerous prank they pulled went wrong. In the year leading up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York. In 1994, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. There was a song that Rodgers and Hammerstein had written, called Boys and Girls Like You and Me, that Judy did wonderfully, but it slowed up the picture and it was cut out. Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames) and his wife Anna (Mary Astor) have four daughters: Rose (Lucille Bremer), Esther (Judy Garland), Agnes (Joan Carroll), and Tootie (Margaret O'Brien); and a son, Lon Jr. (Henry H. Daniels, Jr.). After the preview of the completed film, Judy came over to me and said, "Arthur remind me not to tell you what kind of pictures to make." Plot. At the ball, Esther and Rose plot to ruin the evening of Warren's date--Rose's rival, Lucille Ballard (June Lockhart)--by filling up her dance card with losers. "[10] O'Brien drew further praise from Time; " [her] song and her cakewalk done in a nightgown at a grown-up party, are entrancing acts. The musical score for the film was adapted by Roger Edens, who also served as an uncredited associate producer. Showing all 1 items Jump to: Summaries (1) Summaries.

Esther is also aghast because they will miss the World's Fair. Gerald Kaufman wrote a study of the film, with the same title, which was published by the British Film Institute in 1994. Back from Princeton, Lon, Jr., also is frustrated because he wanted to ask Lucille to the dance. John cannot take Esther as his date because he forgot to pick up his tuxedo at the tailor's. Synopsis.

Rose is expecting a phone call during which she hopes to be proposed to by Warren Sheffield (Robert Sully), and is embarrassed when not only does Warren fail to propose, but the entire family is present as she takes the call during dinner. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis, leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (more commonly referred to as the World's Fair) in the spring of 1904. Later, at Esther's urging, Rose invites John to a farewell party for her older brother Lon, Jr., who is going to Princeton.At the party, Esther at first feigns indifference to John, but hides his hat to keep him at the house and then asks him to help her turn off all the lights. The late-19th century vintage carousel in this movie could be found at the Boblo Island Amusement Park in Amherstburg, Ontario until the park closed in September 1993. The Smith family leads a comfortable upper-middle class life.