Musical Mondays Week 49 Meet Me in St. Louis

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Sorry I completely missed the discussion y'all (and I'm admittedly going to be one of those people that says they're not gonna go back through multiple pages), but Tootie was in fact the most interesting character in this whole film and it was genuinely like watching a prequel to Halloween. The next movie we see she finds a new mask and her "killing" turns a little too real.

It was so wild that no one in her family ever thought to punish either her nor Agnes for the wild extremes they went to.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

I'm new to Musical Monday's (and I seem to keep missing them though I love reading everyone's thoughts) do we have a list of all the movies that have been seen so far so no one suggests one a second time?  It's not TECHNICALLY a musical but with the version coming out I'd like to recommend Judy Garland's A Star Is Born. Or even Barbra Streisand's because that one is supposed to bonkers.

[Cameron H. 23786]

41 minutes ago, gigitastic said:

I'm new to Musical Monday's (and I seem to keep missing them though I love reading everyone's thoughts) do we have a list of all the movies that have been seen so far so no one suggests one a second time?  It's not TECHNICALLY a musical but with the version coming out I'd like to recommend Judy Garland's A Star Is Born. Or even Barbra Streisand's because that one is supposed to bonkers.

I believe Jammer made a Google spreadsheet, but...I forgot to save it

Here’s this, though:

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/42136-musical-mondays-rotation-and-sign-up/

[gigi-tastic 2322]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

I believe Jammer made a Google spreadsheet, but...I forgot to save it

Here’s this, though:

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/42136-musical-mondays-rotation-and-sign-up/

Thanks so much Cameron! I just signed up for a rotation whenever you guys are done with this round.  Hopefully I'll remember next Sunday and I can join in on the fun! 

[Cameron H. 23786]

1 hour ago, gigitastic said:

Thanks so much Cameron! I just signed up for a rotation whenever you guys are done with this round.  Hopefully I'll remember next Sunday and I can join in on the fun! 

Just remember we try to stagger them from HDTGM. We discuss the week after a mini -episode and announce the week of a full episode. That way we have something to talk about between episodes.

Also, you picked a good time to join up as we're approaching the end of this cycle. You should get your first pick pretty soon

(And I've invited you to HDTGM Classics before, right?)

[gigi-tastic 2322]

21 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

Just remember we try to stagger them from HDTGM. We discuss the week after a mini -episode and announce the week of a full episode. That way we have something to talk about between episodes.

Also, you picked a good time to join up as we're approaching the end of this cycle. You should get your first pick pretty soon

(And I've invited you to HDTGM Classics before, right?)

I think I wondered into HDTGM Classics on my own. I think I missed it because I'm a wuss and I just assumed Sleepaway Camp might be too much.   It's the first Friday of every month right?

[grudlian. 4725]

43 minutes ago, gigitastic said:

I think I wondered into HDTGM Classics on my own. I think I missed it because I'm a wuss and I just assumed Sleepaway Camp might be too much.   It's the first Friday of every month right?

Typically unless the first Friday is very early in the month (like the 1st or something) or sometimes if its a holiday weekend maybe.

[PollyDarton 1807]

13 hours ago, EvRobert said:

Okay I didn't care for this movie at all. The music was good, directed with a deft hand, it was beautiful to look at but it was just so...empty. Maybe it's because I've just started production on a stage version of Little Women (which I have similar problems to as this movie) but there really is no story here, no teeth, no...nothing. Tootie was cool though. 

I hear the stage version of St. Louis is terrible. I have never seen it. 

[Cam Bert 8145]

As a non-American my knowledge of St. Louis is very limited. I was not even sure where it is really. The main thing I know about it is that outside of the arch it's not so nice and has a high murder rate. So at the end of the film when they have the "The sun will never set on St.Louis" type ending it made me laugh a little. We already found out that the fair stuff didn't stick around so when did things for St. Louis really start heading south? 

[EvRobert 1684]

8 hours ago, PollyDarton said:

I hear the stage version of St. Louis is terrible. I have never seen it. 

I meant to look up and see if there was a stage version of the show. It seems tailor made for it, pretty static set, classic songs, recognizable title, lots of roles for women. I can't imagine it being very good though as there really is no conflict. At least with Little Women we have the backdrop of a family struggling during the Civil War and some death.

[EvRobert 1684]

8 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

As a non-American my knowledge of St. Louis is very limited. I was not even sure where it is really. The main thing I know about it is that outside of the arch it's not so nice and has a high murder rate. So at the end of the film when they have the "The sun will never set on St.Louis" type ending it made me laugh a little. We already found out that the fair stuff didn't stick around so when did things for St. Louis really start heading south? 

St Louis is about a 10 hr drive from where I live, in the middle of Missouri, which is near the middle of the United States. I've visited a few times over the  years but always as a tourist, so I can't really say when things went "south" but Missouri has always been a...unique state. I could get into some of the history, but it's historically been a state pretty rife with racial tensions.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

9 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

As a non-American my knowledge of St. Louis is very limited. I was not even sure where it is really. The main thing I know about it is that outside of the arch it's not so nice and has a high murder rate. So at the end of the film when they have the "The sun will never set on St.Louis" type ending it made me laugh a little. We already found out that the fair stuff didn't stick around so when did things for St. Louis really start heading south? 

Oh yeah the more they kept talking about how perfect St. Louis was the more I thought "yeah because you're rich and white..."

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

43 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

Oh yeah the more they kept talking about how perfect St. Louis was the more I thought "yeah because you're rich and white..."

"Meet Me in Ferguson" just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way "Meet Me in St. Louis" does.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

16 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

I believe Jammer made a Google spreadsheet, but...I forgot to save it

Here’s this, though:

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/42136-musical-mondays-rotation-and-sign-up/

I searched the forum and found it.

Musical Mondays Google Spreadsheet

[grudlian. 4725]

44 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

Oh yeah the more they kept talking about how perfect St. Louis was the more I thought "yeah because you're rich and white..."

Cam Bert's question had me actually curious as to when St. Louis got bad. It's certainly been known as, if not the murder capital of the US, it's always near the top (and crime of other types is usually pretty high up there as well). So, when did that start?

According towikipedia, maybe around the time this movie takes place. Obviously newspaper reporting 100+ years ago may not be reliable but it looks like murder rates went way up at the turn of the century. Maybe murder was under reported prior to 1900 though.

Obviously, being wealthy white people and written from the perspective of Tootie where a child may not realize how crime ridden their city is may make St. Louis seem less dangerous than it is. But it's possible it was genuinely better at this time than shortly after that.

Take, for example, Gary, Indiana. In the Music Man, it's written about favorably. Of course, is a song from a con man and not reliable. But Gary used to be an okay place to live. At least good enough you could convince people being from the is fine. You couldn't write a song about Gary at anytime after the 90s to fool anyone. So, maybe 1903 was the last time you could ever write a movie about how great St. Louis is.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I hesitate to bring this up but it's bothering me.  Esther and Tootie do a cakewalk during the party.  The lyrics are questionable but the dance itself doesn't appear to be kosher (at least for white people to be doing).  I thought sure we had a previous pick where a cakewalk was done or mentioned.  Does anyone remember that?

Here's the Wikipedia entry on cakewalks.

Quote

The cakewalk or cake walk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" held in the late 19th century, generally at get-togethers on black slave plantations after emancipation in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around". At the conclusion of a performance of the original form of the dance in an exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, an enormous cake was awarded to the winning couple. Thereafter it was performed in minstrel shows, exclusively by men until the 1890s. The inclusion of women in the cast "made possible all sorts of improvisations in the Walk, and the original was soon changed into a grotesque dance" which became very popular across the country.[3]

And in modern times...

Quote

The American English term "cakewalk" was used as early as 1863 to indicate something that is very easy or effortless, although this metaphor may refer to the carnival game of the same name in referring to the fact that the latter's winners obtain their prize by doing no more than walking around in a circle.[47] Though the dance itself could be physically demanding, it was generally considered a fun, recreational pastime, covertly mocking slaveholder dance parties. The phrase "takes the cake" also comes from this practice,[48][49] as could "piece of cake."[47]

Thoughts?

Edited October 10, 2018 by Cinco DeNio

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

If Lon had already gone to Princeton for a while surely he had taken a trip or two into New York City?  He could tell them what it was really like and maybe research places to live so they wouldn't be in a tenement.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

37 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Cam Bert's question had me actually curious as to when St. Louis got bad. It's certainly been known as, if not the murder capital of the US, it's always near the top (and crime of other types is usually pretty high up there as well). So, when did that start?

According towikipedia, maybe around the time this movie takes place. Obviously newspaper reporting 100+ years ago may not be reliable but it looks like murder rates went way up at the turn of the century. Maybe murder was under reported prior to 1900 though.

Obviously, being wealthy white people and written from the perspective of Tootie where a child may not realize how crime ridden their city is may make St. Louis seem less dangerous than it is. But it's possible it was genuinely better at this time than shortly after that.

Take, for example, Gary, Indiana. In the Music Man, it's written about favorably. Of course, is a song from a con man and not reliable. But Gary used to be an okay place to live. At least good enough you could convince people being from the is fine. You couldn't write a song about Gary at anytime after the 90s to fool anyone. So, maybe 1903 was the last time you could ever write a movie about how great St. Louis is.

My comment was more towards Cam's comment of how he responded to them talking about how great the city is. I have no actual knowledge about any of the actual statistics but considering recent events it sheds a light on how White this movie is and how that obviously skews the vision of the city.

[grudlian. 4725]

3 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

My comment was more towards Cam's comment of how he responded to them talking about how great the city is. I have no actual knowledge about any of the actual statistics but considering recent events it sheds a light on how White this movie is and how that obviously skews the vision of the city.

For sure. I'm not trying to discount the racist policies of the city at all and how that's lead to where the city is currently. I was just speculating that it was probably good at one point and that might have been around the time this movie was set. I don't want to discount the fact that wealth and race massively alter perception of how the city is for crime.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

4 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

For sure. I'm not trying to discount the racist policies of the city at all and how that's lead to where the city is currently. I was just speculating that it was probably good at one point and that might have been around the time this movie was set. I don't want to discount the fact that wealth and race massively alter perception of how the city is for crime.

I know, I just mean I wasn't even talking about crime at all. It's not a big deal or anything I only wanted to clarify that I meant no matter what the view of the city is gonna be super duper awesome if you're wealthy and white in 1903 lol, and that gets a huge spotlight shined onto it with a modern knowledge of the tension within the city.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

I think there's plenty of movies/literature/stories that are like "oh woe is me, we have to move to the scary big city," but usually it's from the point-of-view of someone who lives in the countryside.  It did feel a little weird to hear it from a family that lives in another big city.  But maybe St. Louis back then was still "frontier" or something, I dunno.

[Cameron H. 23786]

20 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

I think there's plenty of movies/literature/stories that are like "oh woe is me, we have to move to the scary big city," but usually it's from the point-of-view of someone who lives in the countryside.  It did feel a little weird to hear it from a family that lives in another big city.  But maybe St. Louis back then was still "frontier" or something, I dunno.

But someone, I think the mother, says something like, “I know St Louis is a big city too, but this is different.” 

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

5 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

But someone, I think the mother, says something like, “I know St Louis is a big city too, but this is different.” 

Oh well then yea, I still think that's weird

[taylor anne photo 11311]

26 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

But someone, I think the mother, says something like, “I know St Louis is a big city too, but this is different.” 

I genuinely think it has a lot to do with the fact that in St. Louis they are part of the upper class, but in NYC they would be forced to live among others in a tenement and good gracious that is just unacceptable!

[EvRobert 1684]

re: The Cakewalk

 

That's interesting, I didn't know the connotations of that. When I was a kid, the church I grew up in used to have cakewalks (usually around the holidays) it would be like 6 or ten even squares and there would be 6 or 10 cakes. You would walk around to the different numbers like musical chairs. There would be a "caller" who would draw a number and when the music stopped, whoever was on that number won a cake.