Meet Me in St. Louis: Difference between revisions

 

''Meet Me in St. Louis'' was added to the [[National Film Registry]] in 1994.

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* [[Ambiguous Innocence]]: Tootie and Agnes, the youngest in the Smith family, certainly qualify. When Katie, the family's cook, tells Agnes that she kicked her cat down the cellar stairs, Agnes cries, "If you've killed her, I'll kill you! I'll stab you to death in your sleep and tie you to two wild horses 'til you're pulled apart!" It's obvious that she would never actually attempt this, but while she is a sweet and mostly ordinary girl, she seems to have a keen interest in gore and graphic violence, and it's rather troubling at times. She even hopes that Rose got her a hunting knife for Christmas. Tootie, meanwhile, loves to play with her dolls like any normal child, but she also likes to say that they have "four fatal diseases" so that they can "die" and she can give them "beautiful funerals" and bury them in the graveyard. When Mr. Smith announces that they'll be moving, she comments, "It'll take a week to dig up all my dolls from the cemetery!" She also apparently has a plan to dig a tunnel into a neighbour's yard just so that she can grab her legs when she's walking past. Their mischievousness crosses into the territory of [[Enfant Terrible]] when they {{spoiler|stuff a dress to make it look like a body and put it on the streetcar tracks to see what will happen. Tootie gets injured when Esther's crush, John, tries to hide her and Agnes from the police. Then Tootie even tries a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]] to get out of trouble, claiming that John tried to kill her. Even when the family discovers what really happened from Agnes, both the girls get off scot-free. Tootie doesn't even get punished for lying about John.}} Their behaviour and interests are a bit unsettling even by today's standards, so considering that this takes place over a century ago, it's a little surreal that their family doesn't seem at all concerned by it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:National Film Registry]]

[[Category:Films of the 1940s]]

[[Category:The Forties]]