DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Meet Me In St. Louis (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). (1 Viewer)

[Haggai]

Just watched this earlier in the afternoon, after picking it up as a blind buy. Great movie, and it really did get the deluxe treatment from Warners.

I have to say that the whole Halloween sequence really surprised me. When I was a little kid, Halloween involved none of the following things:

-- Building a huge fire smack in the middle of the street from old wood and other things.

-- Knocking on strangers' doors and throwing flour in their faces (instead of asking them for candy, like we do nowadays).

-- Referring to the hitting of said people with said flour as "killing" them.

That was completely insane!

Naturally, I loved it.

 

[Peter Kline]

Haggi,

Steven Spielberg says he patterned the Halloween sequence in "E.T." after the one in "Meet Me In St. Louis".

 

[Haggai]

I don't remember that from ET, but it's been way too long since I've seen it, probably not since I was in elementary school. I'll certainly take your word for it as having a similar Halloween scene to this movie.

 

[Conrad_SSS]

Picked up all 5 of the new Garland classics from Warners yesterday, but have only had the time to watch MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS thus far.

I heartily concur with all the praise lavished here, as this is an amazing DVD. I've seen ST. LOUIS easily 50 times before, and yet this DVD is so gorgeous, so utterly stunning in its beauty, that I feel like I was watching it for the first time.

The 5.0 soundtrack is also astounding. Can this really be possible for a film 60 years old to sound that great. The 2.0 stereo soundtrack on the 1994 laserdisc was revelatory then, but this new DVD track blows the LD track out of the water.

Of course the packaging is stunning, as are all of Warner's double-disc efforts, and the supplements are equally impressive. I'm so delighted they chose to include HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY here. I remember watching it on ABC as a very young child and being captivated by it. It's been 30 years since then, and I'm glad to see that it is as wonderful as I remember it to have been.

I can't praise this release highly enough. An essential DVD for anyone who seriously interested building their own classic film collection.

 

[SteveK]

I have this on order from Columbia House, and I'm very anxious to watch it. I've always enjoyed the film, and I'm looking forward to adding it to my collection. Reading all the comments about how stunning the A/V quality is, I'm really looking forward to seeing this one again.

Steve K.

 

[PaulP]

Also I'd like to express my gratitude to WB and whoever put this together for the inclusion of the isolated music track. A criminally underused DVD feature, this is a great score and the first extra I check out on this packed set!

 

[Peter Kline]

As to background music, it depends on whether isolated elements are available. They were for this film - thus a pretty decent Chace 5.0 remix and isolated track could happen. It's not criminal if they don't do it. It's the FILM that counts in all its glory and beauty - as this one has in spades.

 

[Haggai]

I'm not much into isolated scores on DVD. I am, however, a CD soundtrack freak, and I'll be ordering this one in the near future. It's one of the Turner Classic Movies/Rhino releases, an excellent line of soundtracks, of which I already own quite a few.

 

[bob kaplan]

A congratulations to Warner for these find Judy Garland releases...i have been watching them one by one this week....i hope this is building momentum for the eventual Bette Davis releases

 

[StevenFC]

You guys are killing me. I haven't been able to buy a DVD in about three months and won't be able to for about another month because of bills. There's around thirty or so that I want to get, but Meet Me In St. Louis is near the top. I am sooo jealous. I think when I make my next visit to my friendly DVD retailer around the first of June, I better bring a wheelbarrow with me.

Somebody hide a copy of it for me in the five dollar movie section okay?

 

[Steve...O]

One of my local theaters brought back "Meet Me..." for a limited showing. Went to see it as I had never seen it before. Even though my wife and I generally don't like musicals, I feel in love with this movie and went back to see it a second time.

Needless to say, this DVD will be purchased ASAP. The print that was shown at the theater was in pretty good shape although it was hardly perfect. I can't wait to see what the DVD will look like.

Steve

 

[Steve...O]

This isn't a very active forum so I don't know if anyone will see this, but here goes:

I bought the DVD and loved it. However I noticed that the English subtitles aren't active for musical numbers which was quite disappointing. However by freak accident I happened to turn on my TV closed captioned feature on and those were active for the musical numbers. Since subtitles are much easier on the eye than TV generated captions, I would much prefer the subtitles.

Since I don't normally buy musicals on DVDs: Do subtitles normally go inactive for the song portions or is this some isolated fluke on an otherwise first class DVD?

Thanks for any help. (I did a search in the software forum already and came up empty for issues on this DVD).

Steve