Why would anyone think they could compete with Meet Me in St. Louis? That movie had a great score, a charming script, well-cast secondary characters, a delightful and original character in little Margaret O'Brien, and, in Judy Garland, not just a star but a powerhouse. Foolish Fox decided to go head to head, with another musical set in a nineteenth-century city at the start of a World's Fair. However, that's the only equivalent. Starting with the title (a clunky description vs. a jaunty invitation), everything about this movie is greatly inferior. Instead of one of the greatest popular singers of the twentieth century, there are four non-singing, all-dubbed actors. Instead of a warm-hearted, close family, there is a father who is an unsuccessful but persistent inventor (that corny old bit again) and who is demoted at work, with his pay slashed; there is also a nasty girl (Linda Darnell) who wants so badly to marry the French visitor (not for love, but because she wants to go to Paris) that she tells lies about her younger sister, whom the Frenchman prefers.
Jerome Kern was a greater composer than the the songwriters for Meet Me in St Louis, but this, his last score, was far from his best. The numbers are pleasant enough, but none of them has the vitality of the songs Garland socks across. One song here, "In Love in Vain," is a real tear-your-heart-out number (which sounds as if it was meant for Garland), but not only is it vitiated by being delivered in a bland dubber's voice--we don't respond to it emotionally because, instead of really being unrequited in love, Jeanne Crain is only being temporarily ignored by her beloved because of a misunderstanding.
One brief, charming interlude--the adorable, dapper Avon Long steps into a saloon and delivers three minutes of magic by singing to a tiny girl the minstrel song "Cinderella Sue." Three men standing at the bar and watching him, however, look decidedly unimpressed--even somewhat hostile. I can't imagine MGM having such a sloppy way with details!
Jerome Kern was a greater composer than the the songwriters for Meet Me in St Louis, but this, his last score, was far from his best. The numbers are pleasant enough, but none of them has the vitality of the songs Garland socks across. One song here, "In Love in Vain," is a real tear-your-heart-out number (which sounds as if it was meant for Garland), but not only is it vitiated by being delivered in a bland dubber's voice--we don't respond to it emotionally because, instead of really being unrequited in love, Jeanne Crain is only being temporarily ignored by her beloved because of a misunderstanding.
One brief, charming interlude--the adorable, dapper Avon Long steps into a saloon and delivers three minutes of magic by singing to a tiny girl the minstrel song "Cinderella Sue." Three men standing at the bar and watching him, however, look decidedly unimpressed--even somewhat hostile. I can't imagine MGM having such a sloppy way with details!