1942: Magnificent Ambersons/1944: Meet Me In St Louis

Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Welles) 9/10
Meet Me in St Louis (1944, Minnelli) 8/10

On the surface Vincente Minnelli's Judy Garland classic Meet Me in St Louis and Orson Welles' truncated masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons seem to have little common ground. Yet, after unintentionally viewing these pieces back to back over the weekend I noticed some shared ties both contextually and stylistically as well as their Midwest locations and turn of the century setting.

Both films document the changing nature of two prominent Midwest families. Welles' film chronicles the downfall of a powerful family; while Minnelli's focuses on the spirit of togetherness of a growing bourgeois clan. The Magnificent Ambersons stars Joseph Cotten as Eugene Morgan, an Indianapolis automotive inventor who as a young man was smitten with wealthy heiress Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello). After being caught drunk outside her home, Morgan is rejected by Isabel who marries dour and affluent Wilbur Minafer (Donald Dillaway). The couple are not in love, but have an arrogant brat named George (excellently played by Tim Holt) who utilizes the power and prestige of his name to terrorize the increasingly contemptous community . As time goes on and George graduates from college, the community is beginning to change. When the newly successful Morgan is invited to a family gathering, he and Isabel rekindle their relationship, while George woos the widowed Eugene's daughter (Anne Baxter). Yet, George influenced by his meddling Aunt Fanny (another amazing Agnes Moorehead performance) despises Eugene, his unworthy profession and background: even though it is the only thing that keeps his mother happy.

Two years after Welles' Magnificent Ambersons was released in its present condensed form by RKO, the legendary Freed production unit at MGM gave Vicente Minnelli his third film the now legendary musical Meet Me in St Louis: a film about a turn of the century St Louis family excited about the aura of progress hitting their Midwest town with the 1903 World's Fair, yet dismayed by their father's plans to uproot the family to New York during a key moment in the development of their city and themselves as individuals.In Meet Me in St Louis, Judy Garland plays Esther Smith, a young adult infatuated with her family's participation in the social and technological changes affecting her city, as well as her neighbour John Truett (Tom Drake). Like Welles, Minnelli utilizes his striking camera movements to showcase these changes in the Victorian residences of the Smiths through emphasis on technology (telephones) and quaint values.

There are shades of Welles' Magnificent Ambersons in this picture from the sophisticated characters, themes of time, change and progress, right down to the architecture of the Smith family home. Both were based on stories set at the turn of the century when traditional values and ideals gave way to progressive inventions and social attitudes.Yet, there are explicit differences between Minnelli's and Welles' film principally in the film's context with The Magnificent Ambersons being a domestic tragedy, while Meet Me in St Louis being a reinforcement of familiar ties.

Whereas the bourgeois Smiths embrace social and cultural change and transistion; the aristocratic Minifer Ambersons headed by destructive youth George (Tim Holt) continue to clutch to the Victorian ideas of honour, reputation and class. In both film's ideas of progress shape the characters actions. For George progress is a hinderance to the status quo and causes him to maintain his stubborn attitudes toward society.

In Meet Me in St Louis, the Smiths equate progress with personal character development tied to the evolution of St Louis, while the father associates wealth with progress against the family wishes. Interestingly both picture's utilize sequences on vehicles to demonstrate social development and personal maturation (or lack of): the wintry sequence in Welles' picture in which Cotten attempts to get his prototype car out of the snow to the sneer of George Minifer Amberson, who chides "Get a Horse" while riding with Morgan's daughter, only to require the car and losing her respect. This is similar to the famous trolley sequence in Meet Me St Louis when Judy Garland's Esther Smith realizes she in love with neighbour John Truett and the spirit of change in St. Louis. Both sequences contain songs: "The Trolley Song" in Meet Me in St. Louis is jovial; the delivery of the song in The Magnificent Ambersons is bittersweet and sung off-key by George.

Both films utilize directors with their own striking personal visual pallete. Whereas Welles is more restrained in this picture than in Citizen Kane, the film's mis-en-scene maintains his style its odd angles, long takes and dark lighting is typical Welles. Minnelli too utilizes long takes and interesting angles in his set-pieces, but in a manner opposite to Welles. For Welles the long takes further unearth the tension between characters; for Minnelli the takes reveal the personal feelings of characters none so more incredibly than in the parlour dancing sequence- with its intricate fluidity- and in the brilliant Halloween sequence in which diminuitive 7 year old Margaret O'Brien takes a lengthy solitary walk down an empty, blackened street in an attempt to undo her fear and provide her social inclusivity.

Like The Magnificent Ambersons, Minnelli's picture is divided into four segments, which demonstrate the passage of time. In Welles' film these breaks differentiate the passing years; in Minnelli's a seasonal approach is utilized over the course of a year. The autumn sequence is extremely impressive as it brings a dark aura to the usual jocular musical genre and allows the macabre infatuation with death held by Margaret O'Brien's character to be developed: adding a commentary on the cyclical nature of life and time and its subsequent rapid aura of change.Although Welles' film does suffer in expanding its fullness of character from Wise and RKO's overediting, it maintains a tragic crux that envelopes over a wider social spectrum than Minnelli's picture, which is fixated on solely the changes and effects of progress in middle-class life. The only major flaw to Minnelli's film however may be in the slow-paced Winter sequence, which lacks the vitality, pace and fluid camerawork of the rest of the film.

* Meet Me In St Louis is available through Warner Home Video. As of 2007 Magnificent Ambersons does not have a R1 release date, but is available through Universal Home Video on R2 DVD.

Other Orson Welles Films Reviewed:
Othello (1952) 6/10

Copyright 2006 8 ½ Cinematheque.