Trivia for
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

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• Producer-lyricist Arthur Freed dubbed the singing for Leon Ames.
  
  
• Van Johnson was supposed to play John Truett, but Tom Drake took over.
  
  
• First intended as a duet for Alfred Drake and Joan Roberts, the Rodgers and Hammerstein song, "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" had been discarded from their 1943 Broadway triumph, "Oklahoma!" MGM producer Arthur Freed then purchased screen rights to the song, planning to interpolate it into the film score as a 'Judy Garland (I)' solo, but her rendition was cut from the picture. Miss Garland's Decca album of songs from the film included "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" in an arrangement similar to her MGM prerecording. Later, the ballad was chosen to be crooned by Frank Sinatra to Betty Garrett in another Arthur Freed production, Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), but again the tune was deleted. The footage of Judy singing the song to Tom Drake no longer exists, but on the Warner Home Video special-edition DVD, the original audio recording is played over Garland-Drake production stills. Only about two or three seconds of footage from this sequence may be seen on the trailer in which Tom Drake's name is screened. It shows a medium shot of Tom Drake, and in the background, you can see some buildings supposedly under construction as they would appear in the blue hour before nightfall. Actually, it was just a backdrop for the scene that was filmed on a sound stage.
  
  

• Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland met on this movie, and married soon afterwards.
  
  
• Director Vincente Minnelli worked hard to make the movie as accurate to the times as possible. Not only did its novelist, Sally Benson, give explicit directions as to the decor of her home down to the last detail, but the movie's costume designer took inspiration for many of the movies costumes right out of the Sears & Roebuck catalog from the time period.
  
  
• Judy Garland recorded "The Trolley Song" in a single take.
  
  
• The movie was based on the real-life experiences of novelist Sally Benson. The character of Tootie was based on her own childhood; she was called Tootie as a little girl.
  
  
• "The Trolley Song" was inspired by a children's picture book. The book had a page with a picture of a trolleycar, captioned "Clang! Clang! Clang! went the jolly little trolley."
  
  
• The book on which the film is based originally ran as a weekly feature in the New Yorker Magazine in 1942. For the film many of the actions attributed to Tootie were actually done in real life by Benson's sister Agnes. Also in reality Benson's father moved the family to NYC and they never did come back for the World's Fair.
  
  
• The success of the film had encouraged MGM to create further movies involving the Smith family and was to be based on further tales of Sally Benson's family. MGM wanted to make sort of a deluxe color group of serials in the spirit of the popular Andy Hardy series. A sequel named Meet Me in Manhanttan was in the works in which the Smith family actually moved to New York. This happened in real life to Sally Benson's family. However, the movie never got out of planning stages and was never made.
  
  
• Judy Garland scoffed at the idea of portraying yet another teenager (she was 21 when filming began) and wanted nothing to do with the film. Her mother even went to MGM chief Louis B. Mayer on her behalf. However, Vincente Minnelli convinced her to play the part of Esther Smith, and Judy later fell in love with the story. In her later years she considered it one of her favorite roles.
  
  
• "The Trolley Song" was ranked #26 and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was ranked #72 by the American Film Institute in 2004 on the 100 Greatest Songs in American Films list.
  
  
• In "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", Judy Garland refused to sing the grim original line, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last" to little 'Margaret O'Brien (I)' . The version she sang is the one everyone knows today.
  
  
• Judy Garland missed 13 days of work causing the production taking 70 days to complete from the original budgeted 58 days.
  
  
• Margaret O'Brien's mother wanted more money for her to play "Tootie" in the film. The studio then cast the young daughter of lighting man working on the film, going so far as to even fit her with costumes. They then changed their minds and decided to go ahead and cast Margaret O'Brien. She was playing a scene when that lighting man intentionally dropped a heavy spotlight to the sound stage, narrowly missing the young actress. He was taken away and actually admitted to a mental institution for a time for his deed.
  
  
• The Halloween sequence on the street outside of the Smith home was primarily filmed from a low angle, so that the movie audience would experience the Halloween night on screen as though they were seeing it through the eyes of a child. When Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) embarks on her adventure to the Braukoff home, the houses appear to be large and looming.
  
  
• The street on which the Smith home stood was built specifically for "Meet Me in St. Louis." Located on MGM's vast Backlot #3 that was at Jefferson and Overland Boulevards in Culver City,it was known at the studio as "St. Louis Street" and all of the houses that were on it were used in various film and television shows throughout the next 27 years, until Lot 3 was demolished to make way for an apartment and condominium project. Even in 1970, the last year of Lot 3's existence, the Smith home still looked like it did in 1944, minus the set dressings, of course.
  
  
• Hugh Martin of Martin and Blaine - composers of the film's original songs, did not enjoy his MGM experience. Although Martin greatly admired Garland and the talent of those he was working with, he did not appreciate Producer Arthur Freed's volatile temperament, or the one-upsmanship and self important attitudes shared by the MGM hierarchy. He has said that he found all that showing off and competing for attention "depressing". A devout Christian, in later years he adapted “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas” into “Have yourself a "Blessed" Little Christmas” for a popular Gospel singer.
  
  
• After Tootie crashes Lon's going-away party, Esther asks her if she would like to recite "Did You Ever See a Rabbit Climb a Tree?" for the company. This is a nonsense poem by L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wizard of Oz" (from "Father Goose: His Book", 1899).
  
  
• This film was a box-office smash, grossing more money than any prior MGM release in 20 years -- with the exception of David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind (1939).
  
  
• The stage version of Meet Me In St. Louis opened at the George Gershwin Theater on November 2, 1989 and ran for 252 performances.
  
  

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