The film that I chose for the Behind the Scenes journal entry was Meet Me in St. Louis starring Judy Garland and directed by her then soon to be husband Vincent Minnelli. This is a musical based off the short stories written Sally Benson. Sally’s original stories were from the perspective of the little girl in the film Tutty (O’Brien), however for the movie version they delivered the story mainly through Tutty’s older sister Ester (Garland). This film is about a family living in St. Louis preparing themselves for the large fair, i.e., the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World Fair of 1904. But their family is dealt a nasty card when their father, played by Leon Ames, decides to take a job in New York immediately and that the whole family will eventually join him there. The children are devastated because they realize that they have so much in St. Louis and really don’t want to miss the World’s Fair.
One of the most important back stage aspects of this film was the music. It was mainly an original score was composed by Roger Edens and the music was brought together by Hugh Martins and Ralph Blane. There are actually only 3 original songs in the entire score, the rest of the music that is either sung or added in as background music are remixes of popular tunes from the early 1900’s, which is the time period in which the movie takes places, examples include the remakes of such popular songs as Under The Bamboo Tree and Skip to My Lou. Also the song that the title was based off of, Meet Me in St. Louis was actually the song that was played during the original fair in 1904. Some of the team working on the music during the preliminary work didn’t want to include the song because they thought it was too outdated, but Minnelli vetoed the decision saying that it made the movie more realistic and true to the time period.
The original soundtrack to the movie was supposed to include a Roger and Hammerstein’s song titled, Boys and Girls like you and I, Martins and Blane didn’t particularly like the song because they felt as though it would over power the rest of the songs and in preview showing of the film some said that the film was too long, so the deleted the scene with that song it in. You can see that deleted song however in the Bonus Features DVD.
There is one other very memorable song for this movie and that is the Trolley song, the very song that Vincent Minnelli himself insisted on being included in the movie. Minnelli wanted a song about a trolley, not just a song sung on a trolley. It is from this that The Trolley Song came to be. It took Judy Garland only one take to shoot this song, it was only after the cameras stopped rolling that Martins realized that she had messed up the words but everyone eventually decided to let in go because it was magically the way it was.
Magically is a very appropriate word to describe my feelings about the movie, I thought the music in this film was very tastefully done and enjoyed every song.
One of the most important back stage aspects of this film was the music. It was mainly an original score was composed by Roger Edens and the music was brought together by Hugh Martins and Ralph Blane. There are actually only 3 original songs in the entire score, the rest of the music that is either sung or added in as background music are remixes of popular tunes from the early 1900’s, which is the time period in which the movie takes places, examples include the remakes of such popular songs as Under The Bamboo Tree and Skip to My Lou. Also the song that the title was based off of, Meet Me in St. Louis was actually the song that was played during the original fair in 1904. Some of the team working on the music during the preliminary work didn’t want to include the song because they thought it was too outdated, but Minnelli vetoed the decision saying that it made the movie more realistic and true to the time period.
The original soundtrack to the movie was supposed to include a Roger and Hammerstein’s song titled, Boys and Girls like you and I, Martins and Blane didn’t particularly like the song because they felt as though it would over power the rest of the songs and in preview showing of the film some said that the film was too long, so the deleted the scene with that song it in. You can see that deleted song however in the Bonus Features DVD.
There is one other very memorable song for this movie and that is the Trolley song, the very song that Vincent Minnelli himself insisted on being included in the movie. Minnelli wanted a song about a trolley, not just a song sung on a trolley. It is from this that The Trolley Song came to be. It took Judy Garland only one take to shoot this song, it was only after the cameras stopped rolling that Martins realized that she had messed up the words but everyone eventually decided to let in go because it was magically the way it was.
Magically is a very appropriate word to describe my feelings about the movie, I thought the music in this film was very tastefully done and enjoyed every song.
