Ketchup Comforts + Meet Me In St. Louis

A technicolor condiment antidote to this November...

Nov 13, 2024

“Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow”

— “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” performed by Judy Garland in Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)

Welcome, Film Flavor family. I am muddling through a rough week in the only way I know how: escapism through moving pictures.

I’ll be holding space for panic and hope in the comment section of today’s post, but for a brief moment, I’d like to whisk you away.

The air is crisp and cool. The sun has set. You’re a little kid, and you’ve been waiting for this night all year. You could barely finish your dinner, you were too excited. After strapping on a large and rather scary rubber nose, you explore your neighborhood. Everything that was once so familiar looks so different tonight. Children run around in frightening costumes. Houses you pass by every day seem to have gotten bigger, more mysterious. You feel as though anything could happen.

For a brief sequence, Director Vincente Minnelli transports us here, through the character of Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis.

The 1944 film follows a year in the life of the Smith family living in St. Louis, Missouri leading up to the 1904 World’s Fair. The film leans toward romanticizing turn-of-the-century life: Dance cards at balls, rides on trolleys and horse-drawn carriages, ornate tennis outfits, and one man’s salary supporting an upper-middle-class lifestyle for a family of seven. (Or is it eight… nine if we count the maid? Ten with the cat?)

From the cinematography to the set design, to the ketchup (the technicolor reds!) — Meet Me in St. Louis is a feast for the eyes.

The Perfect Film For Every Holiday (or Lack Thereof)

As we say goodbye to Halloween and make way for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the winter holidays, the 1944 classic film Meet Me in St. Louis serves as an emotional and joyous motion picture that is a perfect reminder of what the holidays are all about.

In fact, today, I’d like to make the argument that Meet Me in St. Louis is not just a Christmas movie, but a Halloween movie, too. Factor in most November holidays are country-specific, and there’s an argument to be made: Meet Me In St. Louis is probably the best movie to watch in November.

Though every scene in the film is a delight, my favorite is one that I don’t often see mentioned in discourse surrounding the picture: On Halloween night, the youngest sister, Tootie, runs down a St. Louis street in her costume, moments after she “killed” the neighborhood boogeyman (or so she thinks) with a handful of flour.

After leaving the man’s steps, Tootie runs towards the camera. The camera then pulls back and up, on a crane, as the wind picks up, allowing autumn leaves to swirl around her. A gaggle of neighborhood children, all dressed in their spookiest outfits, surround her and cheer her on.

“I’m the most horrible!” Tootie chants.

Tootie in the Halloween Scene in Meet Me In St. Louis, grabbing bags of flour, looking inside a window, throwing flour in a man's face, and running away from the house on a dimly-lit street

The sequence captures exactly how children feel feelings — that is to say, with their entire mind, body and soul.

Not unlike the flour-based “bullet pudding” game in Jane Austen’s Emma, the flour thrown in Meet Me in St. Louis is a relic of bygone times. Anyone who has ever baked before knows getting flour off of your clothing can be a time-consuming task, and young people of the late 19th century took advantage of this fact. There are documented cases of large groups of young boys throwing flour at “well-dressed folks on streetcars in 1894,” says Smithsonian Magazine.

While the pranks of All Hallow’s Eve may be but a faded memory, one Meet Me in St. Louis viewing will have you pining for the treats and tricks of yesteryear.

Tootie, played brilliantly by a young Margaret O’Brien, is a relatively unsupervised child. Not old enough for school, she seems to spend most of her days running around St. Louis, chatting up the locals and engaging in some light mischief. Too often misunderstood, the Halloween scene shows Tootie finally reaching her pranking limits.

In the scenes that follow, Tootie ends up with a split lip after a prank gone bad. To avoid punishment, Tootie wrongly accuses an innocent neighbor, who just so happens to be Esther’s (Judy Garland) love interest. Later that evening, the stakes get even higher. Indeed, Tootie’s arch in the film centers around learning from your mistakes before its too late.

Ketchup in Meet Me In St. Louis

Judy Garland and others take a taste of homemade ketchup in the film Meet Me In St. Louis

In the film’s opening scene, the family’s matriarch hovers over a stove. Soon, the maid enters, occasionally stirring. Everyone passing through the kitchen picks up a ladle, takes a taste, and has an opinion. Too sour, too sweet, too flat. They sip it by the spoonful. Is it a soup?1 A stew? Nay, it’s ketchup.

While the history of ketchup is storied, diverse, and by no means strictly tomato-based, homemade varieties are mostly a relic of our culinary past. In the film, the family’s maid and cook — Katie, played by Marjorie Main — uses a ladle to spoon their homemade ketchup into bottles. The consistency of the homemade ketchup more closely resembles soup, hot sauce, or salsa than our modern Heinz. I’m willing to wager it had a bit more flavor, too.

While tomato season has passed, I’m considering doing what these Redditors have done and whip up my own batch of old-fashioned ketchup. During the lockdown years, many of my friends proved themselves to be talented hot sauce crafters, and I’ve always been a little intimidated. Ketchup might be the starter condiment I’ve been looking for!

“I feel that a picture that stays with you is made up of a hundred or more hidden things. They're things that the audience is not conscious of, but that accumulate.”

- Director Vincente Minnelli

Some Meet Me In St. Louis Trivia

2 In today’s parlance, Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) is filled to the brim with “Easter eggs”.

There should really be a trivia board game dedicated solely to the making of the film, but for now, here are a few delightful factoids:

“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is an original song written for this very film. The original lyrics were much darker, but the film’s star, Judy Garland, as well as actor Tom Drake, requested the lyrics be changed to something a little more upbeat — so as not to ruin Christmas!
Judy Garland originally didn’t want to star in St. Louis as she was seeking more “adult” roles. What’s more, she found Director Vincente Minnelli’s production schedule grueling. Luckily for us, she took on the role, making the film widely popular and topping the charts with her solos. She also ended up marrying Mr. Minnelli after the film premiered. And thus, Liza Minnelli was gifted to us.

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A post shared by @filmflavor

Finally, take a look at the last two slides of this post I made on the Film Flavor Instagram back in 2021, from which today’s newsletter was born. Notice where the phone is in each shot? Spatially, it’s a continuity “error” — the phone appears on one wall, then another — but the placement of the phone remains purposeful. This phone call is an inciting incident, and we need to see how the entire family is reacting to every word!

While those of us in America sit and wait for our lawful rights to be rolled back to that of 1903, there’s something oddly comforting about watching a 1940’s romanticization (and critique) of the period. In total, Meet Me in St. Louis is gorgeous, almost twinkling off the screen, and filled with the most uplifting songs in the face of despair.

Personally, I long for an existence in which my only troubles consist of a potential cross-country move from one fantastic city to another. I understand the despair calling our names. And yet: this classic film is so heartwarming that even the most pessimistic of souls may gain some pleasure from a viewing.

Meet Me In St. Louis is currently available to stream for free on Tubi, so there’s no excuse not to give it a watch this week!