YMMV / Meet Me in St. Louis

• Adaptation Displacement: Most people aren't even aware that the film was based on a 1942 novel of the same name, "Meet Me in St. Louis" written by Sally Benson.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Alonso makes reference to a baseball team called the Baltimore Orioles. While there was such a team in 1903, they were only minor league. They'd join the majors in 1954 (coincidentally enough, after the former St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore).
• Award Snub: It lost all four of its Oscar nominations (Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song). Surprisingly, the Original Song nomination went to "The Trolley Song" rather than the more obvious Award-Bait Song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". It did get a semi-win with Margaret O'Brien's "outstanding child actress of 1944" special Oscar (which was technically for all of her films that year).
• Chorus-Only Song: The film doesn't even use the first verse of the title song — all anyone sings is the first chorus.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Katie, the Servile Snarker, is one of the favourite characters in the movie. She appears far less than her popularity would indicate.
  • Vincente Minnelli himself noted that during rehearsals and initial shooting, Lucille Bremer who played Rose, was outperforming Judy Garland immensely. All the more impressive because this was her first film.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The scene of Esther reluctantly wearing a corset is a little uncomfortable with the knowledge that Judy Garland struggled with body image and maintaining weight throughout her career. She would even be dropped from Annie Get Your Gun because her weight was fluctuating repeatedly during the shoot.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: John refers to "darn it" as a "vulgar expression." There's now a trope called Gosh Dang It to Heck!, for where tame swear words are used as substitutes for harsher ones.
• LGBT Fanbase: A Judy Garland-headlined musical directed by a famous LGBT filmmaker, with a song heavily associated with the community. And of course all the Costume Porn.
• Second Verse Curse:
  • The soundtrack only gives us the first verse and chorus of the title song. The actual song has six verses and choruses, which can be read in their entirety here. The Other Wiki even notes:
    "The song, which is generally styled in the form of a limerick, has many and varied verses, few of which are remembered today — unlike the chorus."
  • Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien only sing the first verse and the chorus of "Under the Bamboo Tree". Considering the Values Dissonance increases in the later verses, this was probably for the best.
• Signature Scene: Depends on how you look at it, as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is easily the most well-known track from the movie, but "The Trolley Song" is actually associated with this movie more.
• Tear Jerker: The song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" which is considerably more tragic and sarcastic than Pop-Cultural Osmosis would let on. In fact, it's forgotten that Esther is really technically singing the song to John - as she looks in his window's direction to sing it, implying she won't accept his marriage proposal. Tootie eventually can't take it and runs outside to destroy all her snow people.
• Testosterone Brigade: With this film marking Judy Garland's transition from child star to adult actress (and she herself felt it was the first time she ever found herself beautiful on the big screen) and the equally gorgeous Girl Next Door quality of Lucille Bremer - and one scene of them in underwear, and another of them in corsets - there are plenty who watch the film to gush over the beauty of those two actresses.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Agnes and Tootie are presented as just a pair of charmingly mischievous troublemakers. However their actions at Halloween (and lack of punishment for them) has them come across as disturbingly sociopathic.
• Values Dissonance:
  • John uses a vulgar expression in front of the girls and immediately apologizes for it. The vulgar expression? "Darn it."
  • The film seems to agree that Rose is "stuck up" for being concerned about the lives Agnes and Tootie could have ended with their almost Deadly Prank, since Rose proceeds to defend Tootie when Esther reprimands her, and they all end up having a great laugh, and no one gets punished.
  • "Under the Bamboo Tree" is an authentic song from the period in which the film takes place. It's a love song about two African savages, who are viewed patronizingly as simple, happy natives. Luckily, the movie only includes the first verse and the chorus. The patronizing tone becomes more evident in the later verses.
  • The Halloween celebrations depicted in the film look nigh unrecognizable to modern audiences, because they're from the era of Halloween when it was much more about vandalism and "tricks" as opposed to innocently collecting candy. The part where the children are shown tending a bonfire is particularly confusing (not to mention disturbing) if one doesn’t know the history.
  • Warren Sheffield barging into the house at midnight, Christmas Day to announce his intentions to marry Rose. While a funny scene, the fact that the family went to bed with their front door unlocked would probably raise red flags to modern viewers.

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