"Miracle in St Louis" a Christmas classic. Discuss your fav. scenes and number from the star-studded cast.

The tram scene surely has to be a part of film history. When Judy crushes her little sister’s legs and Angela, who has been the mean showgirl throughout the film, attempts to lift the tram up so they can release her. I just remember Angela holding up that tram and it finally giving way as they pull Natalie out. That haunting shot of the gloved hand poking out of the crushed metal.

Joan Crawford anxiously waiting for the phone call from New York, only to be heartbroken and told that she is box office poison.

And Ann Miller dancing through the department store owned by her father (played by Jimmy Durante), kicking those hat boxes and singing.

Lots of greats scenes to choose from, but I think my favorite are when, enroute to St. Louis for Christmas, Barbra Stanwyck and hunky John Payne get snowed in in rural Indiana and take shelter at a farm occupied by an injured Monty Wooley and his caregiver "nephew" Tom Drake. The scenes with Payne, Drake, and Wooley by the fire in their pajamas bristle with sexual tension as Wooley makes one coded sexual innuendo after another. It is scenes like this that make it plainly obvious which side of the bread Vincente Minnelli's is buttered.

I think the Christmas party is the best scene with Judy in the gorgeous red dress when suddenly she, Lucille Bremer and June Lockhart from petty cash burst into Turkey Lurkey Time.

The gang bang scene, with a cameo by the champagne bottle.

Dr Meade in the corner sniffing coke during Under the Bamboo Tree.

"When you loving me and I loving you and we love each other true!" When little Natalie sings that it's so sweet.

The story about the world s fair and the Father’s obsession with getting a transistor radio for the family was touching. I loved his number about it ‘The Tranny Song’ where he wears his wife’s clothes as a disguise to infiltrate the inventors tent.

Did you know that Natalie couldn't cry on cue , so Judy was hurling insults in russian at her while the munshkins lifted her skirt to show her pussy ? No wonder Nat spent her life in psychoanalysis !

This movie destroyed me as a child. Having the Natalie Wood character die of septicemia just days before Christmas, only to be replaced by orphaned country cousin Margaret O'Brien... WTF?? Just like that she was replaced, and the family lived happily ever after!

Esther Garland sang about the Boy Next Door - turned out all the lights and the next thing we know Natalie Wood is weeping hysterically in the snow!! Tom Drake didn't care for red headed junkies with nose plugs, but he enjoyed a lil cakewalk with a prepubescent Russian princess. If only the family could have moved sooner! Esther Garland was the first woman on film to glue down her eyebrows. Vincent Garland created a new brow shape for her....like wings across her forehead. Drag queens all over the world glue down their brows in Judy St Louis honor, to this very day. Natalie Wood won the best crier under 10 award at MGM and that gained her a lot of private auditions. She was affectionately known as waterworks.

Why couldn't Jimmy Stewart land the plane again ? The plot is so confusing at times, but I guess it's because the original director's cut was 3 hours long, and the Angela Lansbury's part was kind of essential to the story, before it was reduced to the infamous cameo. Boy was this movie butchered !

The wonderful scene where the dog found them in the cabin.

What about "Easter Charade"?

Or "Lily Mars Presents Arms" the sequel to "Presenting Lily Mars" with Judy as a WAC?

OP Surely you mean "Meet me in St Louis"?

I have a letter from my great grandmother who lived in Canada, and the letter is to her daughter, my grandmother, telling her about the movie. My grandmother and her boys lived in London, had endured the Blitz and the V1 and V2 attacks; the movie had not been released in the UK but it was one of the first movies they all went to see after the war.

My Dad loved it and used to sing the title song and the Trolley Song.

R16 ........what planet are you living on?

R17 Indeed...I'm beginning to wonder!

Is anyone gonna explain this to R16?

We're talking about "The miracle in St-Louis ' R16. The original version with the all star cast, Judy Garland, Natalie Wood/Margaret O'Brien in the double role of the youngest daughter/crippled orphan , James Stewart, Ginger Rogers, Claudette Colbert, Vincent Price, Angela Lansbury,... Help me gurls, who else is in it ?

You left out Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara and John Payne who spends most of the movie finding excuses to go around barechested.

Yes R21, it's a great movie, and ' the tranny song' number is a milestone in Judy' s career.

The uncut version, which apparently is lost forever, has Helen Lawson singing a rousing patriotic song that was eventually deemed too offensive.

The rollicking "A Cheerful Heart is Good Medicine" number at the children's ward is always a crowd pleaser, with Judy and June Allyson as the nurse, taking turns cheering up Natalie and the other sick children with inspiring song, before Gower and Marge Champion take over with a delirious dance sequence involving the children in wheelchairs. Always puts a smile on my face.

I don't like Natalie as a blond though. She's cute as ever, but I prefer her real hair nuance. I never knew that the nurse is June Allyson, under the gorilla mask, is she credited ?

R23, you stole my Lawson thunder! But I do have a bit of trivia about her part: in the film, Desnudia (Lawson) is presented as a blowsy showgirl but in the original novel, the character is an alcoholic prostitute.

In the nouvel, the Crawford character and the Stanwyck character don't exist. They appeared in the movie as part as the war effort, and the gang bang scene was added after the preview for the G. I. s, who thought the movie was too wholesome.

I always tear up during the final scene when Father and his family are leaving their beloved home for the final time. Suddenly Jimmy Stewart crashes The Spirit of St. Louis into the side of the house. "That's it, we're staying!" Father says to cries of joy. "Honey, the chances of another plane hitting this house are astronomical. It's been pre-disastered. We're going to be safe here!" as the music swells and the scene fades out.

Did you know that the part of the chorus girl who shoots ping-pong balls through her pussy at the masquerade Ball in the zoo was originally intended for Vivien Leigh ? Selznick felt that even though it's a supporting character, it would be the perfect following to Scarlett and would show her range ? But even after taping her clit, they still had to use tennis balls, so they gave the part to Claudette Colbert. I think Claudette is great, and very effective in the part, but I can't help wondering what Vivien would have done with the role. Her tests are in the bonus of the anniversary edition set. She's fantastic, but her pussy is much too wide and used and it doesn't work for the mood of the scene.

Whatever happened to those plans to bring it to Broadway? Wasn't there an early workshop with Stephanie Janette Block as Judy?

R16 I have a very similar story to yours, but about the film Miracle in St Louis not that rubbish your unsavoury mob of relatives went to see.

My family in London had been living in an Anderson Shelter since 1942 and were desperate to see ‘Miracle in St Louis’ but the local picture house was bombed during a showing of ‘How Green is my Fanny’. In the end they walked for 7 miles to see Miracle in St Louise’ and loved every minute. Although Angela Langsbury’s shocking cameo as the showgirl with the heart really did get tongues wagging. Many years later my grandmother (who was a young lady when they saw the film) happened to turn over the TV and Murder She Wrote was on. She shouted “That filthy whore made Jimmy Stewart go down” and it was only years later, when I saw Miracle in St Louis for the first time, that I understand what she meant!

I need to re-watch it now. I haven't seen it since I was a kid. Our teacher miss Fairfax took us to see it for Christmas, but we had to leave the theater when Lansbury and Colbert make their entrance, and miss Fairfax was nearly arrested.

Agnes Moorehead was unnervingly convincing as the cruel jailhouse matron in the scene where Esther spends one night in the slammer after crashing the trolley.

Yes Colbert’s tennis ball flying past Lansbury on that stage and plopping in Jimmy Stewart’s pitcher of beer still captivates me. Apparently Minnelli was like Stanley Kubrick for retakes and he made Colbert shoot that ball out a staggering 324 times before he was satisfied with the take. In the end Claudette was so dry the studio fire department were on standby for sparks.

R33 Oh Moorehead was perfection as that mean bitch. Poor Esther is so scared when she’s thrown into that cell. Then Miss Steele, perfectly played by Agnes appears through the bars and gives that chilling opening line :-

“You sure do have a big tongue pretty girl”

OMG I had forgotten Agnes Moorehead ! There are SO many great cameos in this movie. Nice bit of trivia R34, I always wondered , because you see the whole thing, no way it's a special effect.

R36 No it was all real. As was Angela’s scene with the champagne enema. Years later on Inside the actors studio Angie did let James Lipton in on a little secret, she said :-

“Louis B Mayor was such a stingy old cunt that he refused to allow real champagne. Instead they sent a stage hand around to the lot of National Velvet 2 to collect a bucket of horse piss which they dropped 20 alka seltzer in. It would lose its fizz very quickly, so it was pumped up me fast and I had to blast it out before it went flat. Unfortunately, Vincent had used Judy’s alka seltzer and she arrived on set that day very fragile, but she was such a trooper until she staggered too far over and got hit in the eye with a tennis ball. We had to shut down production for 6 weeks after this.”

Wow ! I could never imagine. She is so smooth in the scene. That really shows her talent

Lawson was cast only after Greer Garson had turned down the part.

The only "Miracle in St Louis" I am aware of was me getting out of that hellhole when I was 18.

I can't see Garson in that part.

Greer Garson had to turn down the part as she was scheduled to appear in the MGM musical ‘Wuthering’ with Danny Kaye as Heathcliff. That production was becoming a nightmare and there was no way Garson could record her huge Busby Berkeley dance numbers for Wuthering and do Miracle in St Louis at the same time.

Van Johnson put out to Vincente for a featured role in "Miracle" as Gang Bang Boy in the fair scene, but he got double crossed when Minnelli cast Dickie Moore instead.

Jeanette MacDonald passed on Lawson's part, too. She said it was too much like her part in San Francisco and "I don't eat yesterday's stew."

I had read that little Margaret O'Brien was originally cast to play the Natalie Wood part, but Monty Woolley's wicked on-set antics and salacious comments about the girl terrified O'Brien and alarmed her mother Gladys, who pulled her from the production. Woolley protested that it was all in good fun, but Gladys was not convinced. When Natalie stepped in, June Lockhart (or was it June Allyson?) warned Nat's mother, Maria, about him, but Maria simply shrugged, "My Natalia can handle it. She's a trouper!" Poor Natalie, however, was left traumatized and needed years of therapy. Margaret was given the lesser role of Natalie's country cousin later adopted by Judy's family.

The "Hobo's Dream Ballet" with Judy and Emmett Kelly Jr. was trippy, to say the least.

EVERYBODY WHO WAS SOMEBODY in Hollywood wanted to be cast in that movie. Robert Taylor, Tyrone Power, even Cary Grant campagned for the part of gang bang boy. Mayer wanted Johnson. He said to Minelli, he won't even have to act, and showed him some candide footage of Johnson at Cukor's sunday pool parties. When Dickie Moore was cast, Van famously said "I am glad that it's finally mr. Moore who will land flat on his pretty face". It was very racy for the time, and many people predicted it would BOMB at the box office

A little known fact! There was originally to have been three showgirls, Claudette Colbert, Angela Langsbury and June Allyson. Allyson’s character Hatty was to be a mean hot minx who upstaged the other two with the tennis ball and champagne enema act combined. However, if Colbert found shooting those balls hard, Allyson really struggled and combined with spraying the fizzy horse piss would often cry and run off set. Eventually she was fired and Allyson claimed the part resulted in serious bladder control problems for the rest of her life.

George Sidney actually shot Lawson's cut number with the Boom De Ay girls, uncredited.

Van Johnson and Angela Lansbury did actually shoot scenes together in an early screen test. However Johnson was thrilled to be asked to a pool party by Cukor, however Cukor told Lansbury she’d need to lubricate more and practise her pelvic exercises. She was thoroughly pissed off, but did oblige.

Helen Lawson never forgave Freed for cutting all her scenes and got even years later, telling outrageous stories on Jack Paar's show about the chaos on set. She also claimed the previews were so disastrous that over half the film had to be reshot by George Sidney since Minelli had to move on to "Bovary!" with Irene Dunne, her only MGM musical.

Minnelli was surprisingly progressive for his time and thought about putting the Mills Brothers in the GB sequence, but Louis B objected, rightfully concluding that 1940s movie audiences just weren't ready for "that sort of stuff." Instead, Minnelli put them in the "Hobo's Dream Ballet" sequence, which IMHO, was overly long and pointless since it didn't really advance the plot.

OMG thanks R50, that picture is not in the book "Miracle in St Louis, The making of a Cult Legend ". A poster here said that narcoleptic nurse with the Gorilla mask IS in fact Allyson, but she's not credited in the movie. Is it an easter egg then, that she shits herself in the scene ? Is that referred to in her later commercials ?

The Hobo's Ballet didn't advance the plot because any number with black performers had to be stand alone things so they could be easily cut from prints playing in the American south.

Correction: not the Mills Brothers, the NICHOLAS Brothers. Mea culpa!

My favorite cameo is Fred Astaire as Timmy, The Dancing Leprechaun. Although he steals his short scene, much of what he shot was cut for time. (That first disastrous preview ran over four and a half hours.) It's a shame so little of the cut material survives.

R53, the shitting was indeed mentioned in one of the commercials, for the double whammy, you’ll be glad I canny pads. And yes the nurse with the Gorilla mask was Allyson. This was a fact mentioned in Judy’s TV series in the 1960’s. Judy was showing June photos of their work together and sure enough the Gorilla mask photo appeared. Apparently the morphine the nurse injects into Esther’s arm prior to her dreaming The Hobos ballet was indeed real morphine. June thought Judy would get a real kick out of it, but sadly Judy was prone to negative reactions to some stronger surgical medications. Rather than singing Over the rainbow as June had expected her to, Judy went ballistic with a pair of scissors and attacked Agnes Moorhead. However Judy made a dry comment to June about seeing the scar on that weeks episode of Bewitched and thinking Agnes wasn’t doing too bad from it all.

Was it shot in color or, was is colorized later ? The pussies seem so RED

Astaire and Ann Miller are barely in the movie. Like Crawford and Stanwyck. I guess most of their thing ended up on the editing room floor. It's a shame that There's no trace of the raw footage and the outtakes,

Real three strip Technicolor, r58. The full negatives for the released version survive in pristine storage conditions at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY But, alas, almost all the cut material is gone forever.

[quote]The pussies seem so RED

Surprise trivia for you: remember those Technicolor inserts of the deformed, mangled, bloody image of the portrait in The Picture of Dorian Gray with Hurd Hatfield? Guess where that footage came from?

R58, It was shot in full colour and cost Metro a fortune. Originally the plan had been to do an Oz and start the film in black and white, then burst into Technicolor as Angela and Claudette opened their legs, but Minnelli wanted it all in colour.

R59, according to Ann Miller she, Crawford and Stanwyck shot a huge big scene in a pink bubble bath, but it was canned.

Judy singing, "The girl down the block," is iconic for being the first lesbian-laden musical number on the silver screen. The subtext was so strong. In "The making of the Miracle of St. Louis" book, it's revealed that Judy originally didn't want to sing this now classic number. Agnes Moorehead had to talk Judy out of her dressing room and spike her tea with drugs in order for Judy's nerves to calm down enough to enable her to perform the number. You would never know she was high by watching the love song on screen!

Could you eldergays stop with that dud ? Nobody under 75 likes"Miracle in St Louis". Please. It's so dated and lame. What a bore. The gang bang scene might be shocking in the last century but It holds 7% on the rotten tomates website. Zzzzzzz

The Gang Bang scene is rumored to have been on Pornhub at one point but if true, it's gone now.

It WAS on Porn for awhile, r64. You should have read the comments!

Ummm are we just going to pretend that the ill-fated made-for-television remake of Miracle in St. Louis doesn't exist? Starring Drew Barrymore and Tina Yothers in the Natalie Wood/Margaret O'Brien roles, naturally.

I thought casting Jill St. John in the made-for-television miniseries was in poor taste, given Natalie Wood's role in the original.

It's like ' what happened to Rosemary 's baby' ' with Zoe Saldana. Better forgotten, never forgiven. And Jill St John doesn' t even shoot the balls through her pussy, but through her mouth.

I remember the annual Christmas Eve showings on CBS back in the 1950s and 60s. They were wildly popular. But of course they ended abruptly after Helen Lawson hosted the broadcast live one year drinking vodka stingers. She -- well, we all know what happened. Oddly enough, that unfortunate evening is what gave her the idea for her legendary Christmas specials.

[quote]Or "Lily Mars Presents Arms" the sequel to "Presenting Lily Mars" with Judy as a WAC?

"Lily Mars Presents Hole" would attract more viewers.

I didn'tch include any of the numbersh from "Miracle in Schaint Louisch" in my shhow, "Minnelli on Minnelli". I wasch too buschy playing with clay to remember to add them to the schetlist!

R66, Here's an interesting bit of trivia: Robert Blake, who played the Jimmy Stewart role in the made-for-tv remake, was the boy with polio in the children's ward scene in the original.

Does anyone remember the anniversary special on TV in the 70s that featured those drag queens re-enacting the Halloween Ball where Natalie goes all agro and destroys the jack-o-lanterns with the axe?

Wait, does Vincent Price have a cameo in the number set in the department store notions department as Victoria Cost? I never noticed it, but now I’m thinking it’s him in drag!

You are eagle eyed, r74. That was Vincent and Jack Benny as the spinster Twimbleton sisters.

R73, Yes, it was craptacular cheesefest, hosted by Joey Heatherton and Lola Falana, which may have inspired Catherine O'Hara's best parody character. I couldn't believe that was on network television. The production values were better suited for UHF local access television.

I seem to remember a rather special Sapphic moment between Marjorie Main and Hattie McDaniel as the maid next door who comes over to borrow a cup of sugar to add to the ketchup. Was it in the restored special edition that was briefly available on laser disc?

Given Helen is a fake, Jack Paar replaced her with sweet Mary Martin and the interview occurred in Mary's home in Brazil, a thousand miles from the nearest phone .

judging by production stills, one of lost musical numbers I've always most wanted to see is MGM chorus boys dressed as the crew of the USS Indianapolis dancing The Harlot's Hornpipe with the exquisite Lucille Brenner.

^ er, Bremer, not Brenner, of course.

Bremer was Freed's real life mistress. One reason Freed convinced Mayer to OK such a massive budget was that Freed had originally intended the film to be a big showcase for her. After the legendarily disastrous first preview, Bremer went to Freed in tears begging to be cut from the film. He was ahead of her and already decided to do exactly that.

The infamous memo Freed sent to Minnelli the morning after that preview began "VINCENT!!! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE??? ARE YOU TRYING TO BANKRUPT THE STUDIO???" Like the original cut of the film, the memo no longer exists but quotes from it by people who read it and spoke about it years later in interviews and memoirs are unbelievable.

Whatever. I wish we could see Lucille Bremer dancing The Harlot's Hornpipe!

R77, that scene exists in a half finished black and white work print but it was only included as a deleted scene on the that special edition 1993 laser disc. The shot where Tallulah Bankhead pokes her head in the door and screams WHO STOLE MY TRICK! has been found but there is much discussion as to whether any future editions will include it. Legal issues.

The made for TV remake was a huge mistake. There were some highlights such as Bea Arthur in the Agnes Moorehead role, but updating the saloon bar to a roller disco and having Langsbury and Colbert’s parts played by Doris Roberts and Charlotte Rae was a bad call.

And Suzanne Sommers as Judy Garland was ludicrous casting. At the time, she was on more pills than Helen Lawson.

R35, thanks for jogging my memory. Kathleen Turner’s upcoming one-woman Agnes Moorehead off-Broadway show is called “Big Tongue, Pretty Girl” and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where that line came from.

R85 Agreed. And another little known fact is Joyce De Witt had been cast in the role but the producers of Three’s Company wouldn’t give her the time off. Sommers then went to the movie producers and said she’d do the part and would get the time off by faking a pay dispute. Sommers thought her performance in Miracle would spring board her movie career, but her performance was so panned she took to peddling thigh masters.

Is it true that during the first preview in Pasadena that they locked the front doors and several people were injured when they tried to get out before the film ended?

Yes, r88. One of the preview cards said "Don't change a thing. Burn the whole thing, burn it ALL!"

Wasn't this the original movie where Louis B. Mayer got in trouble for molesting several popular actresses (and actors) on set? It's a miracle the Studio system was able to survive after this controversy, but it was a different time.

R90 Well the Louis B Mayor tales of this picture are a whole story alone. Mayor would appear on set (supposedly in disguise) wearing a blonde wig and pink baby doll dress. He claimed to be a young starlet called Lou-Lou Lamar who was making a picture called The Children of Wackleberry Farm. The charade went as far as having a set of a farm yard built and hiring Margaret Hamilton to play a school teacher.

Lou-Lou Lamar would then somehow wonder onto the Miracle set and attempt to get women and men to come visit her dressing room. All were too scared to admit they recognised Mayor and on one occasion a coerced Jackie Cooper was forced to propose marriage to Lou-Lou, but not question why this female had just buggered him behind the props mans office. On this occasion Mayor then ran upstairs, changed back into his suit and called Cooper to his office to ask why he’d been seducing beautiful underage girls on his sound stage.

R90 You're actually thinking of the classic "A Hole is Born," that movie really killed his career I think. MGM was never the same afterwards.

Isn't this the film where the director pulled out a gun and killed the puppy Natalie was holding when she couldn't cry on cue?

I can't believe that no one has mentioned that Lucille Ball wanted to play the cameo role of Lillian, the night club singer who has moderate to severe plaque psoriasis but Gary didn't think it was a good idea.

Judy had them change the original lyrics from "His Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire" to "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire". Judy said "I couldn't sing that to little Natalie!"

I'd heard that, r94. The funny thing is, Lucille listened to him even though they had never met and wouldn't marry until many years in the future.

[quote]Judy had them change the original lyrics from "His Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire" to "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire". Judy said "I couldn't sing that to little Natalie!"

Almost right. The song was written to be sung as an homage to actor Chester Morris, and the original lyric was "Chet's nuts roasting on an open fire," but the line proved impossible for Judy to say in her sozzled state, so the number was toned way down. As a result, more attention (choreography and louder singing) was given to [italic]The Tranny Song.[/italic] And, as daughter Liza Minnelli would say decades later, "the resht ish hishtory."

It's too bad that this film airs very rarely these days, the rendition of "Baby It's Cold Outside" by Margaret O'Brien and Jimmy Durante is just too much for audiences these days! Everything is interpreted as date rape!

Is it true that an early version of "Santa Baby" was intended for Judy to sing in the film, but it was decided she wasn't sexy enough to pull it off?

Lucille Ball was going to sing the Tranny Song, but a young Gary Morton wouldn't allow it.

And Lucy kept asking around, "who is this annoying little Jew, and why do I feel I compelled listen to him?"

Lucille Bremer in real life was producer's Arthur's Feed's mistress. These comments about Lucille Ball are very misleading although she did appear in several Freed musicals.

^ That was just the first fourth of my above comment but suddenly it posted before i clicked POST. i think I'll give up for tonight.

Helen Lawson was banned from the set after she screamed at Judy "that goddamn boy next door of yours is a FAG!"

Back to "breakfast is born". Overrated or classic ?

The Western Electric Co. Christmas Party scenes were surreal and inspired. Having Nancy Davis play the office slut being passed around between the Peter Lawford character at Accounts Receivable and Robert Walker's in Accounts Payable was a delicious inside joke that was lost on 1940s audiences. And casting Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter and Mary Wickes as the disapproving chorus in the secretarial pool, throwing withering looks and zingers, was a stroke of genius! When they turn on poor Esther Garland, after catching her and Lawford in a compromising position, it was just heartbreaking! Her sad lament "What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas?" sung while the office is abuzz with festivities, has become a classic among the lovelorn.

But you have to admit, r106, that office girls Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter and Mary Wickes blew the roof off with their Turkey Lurkey Time.

[quote]I think the Christmas party is the best scene with Judy in the gorgeous red dress

That scene where Judy arrives at the party in her red dress and Olivia De Havilland comes over and asks her to help her receive her guests is amazing. You can cut the tension with a knife.

[quote]And casting Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter and Mary Wickes as the disapproving chorus in the secretarial poo

I feel like the world is a lesser place because we never got a movie with Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter, and Mary Wickes trading zingers.

Thelma actually had a pretty good character voice. She sang on Broadway, you know. Eve’s voice wasn’t as good

[quote]He said to Minelli, he won't even have to act, and showed him some candide footage of Johnson at Cukor's sunday pool parties.

"Candide" footage? Was Van singing "Glitter and Be Gay" in it?

Very few know the six year-old Mia Farrow (later to star with Angela Lansbury in Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Murders on the Nile") was originally cast as Tootie, but she needed too much time off to adopt dozens of kittens. Natalie Wood happily stepped in.

My favorite number is still "On the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad" where Esther and all the newsboys sing about traveling from New York City to Chicago in only sixteen hours on Easter morning. I love how the number ends with Leon Ames throwing his Hickory Nut Cake at the Pullman Porter having mistaken him for Mary Astor! The Buster Keaton staging helped revive his career, I read.

I knew about Mia, but I thought she had to step out because of polio. And I always thought that it was Robert WAGNER in "breakfast is born" not Robert WALKER. do I need to turn out my gay card since I failed my Hollywood memorabilia test ?

R112, it was neither Robert Wagner nor Robert Walker, but Robert WEBBER, whose stiff performance as a Korean War vet forced to be a rentboy for Broadway producers, might explain why he was rarely cast as a leading man. And the lovely Jane Powell, cast against type as a New York society playgirl ravaged by drugs and booze and manic depression, was too much of a downer to make "Breakfast is Born" worth watching on second viewing. Although, I did enjoy Russ Tamblyn and Joan Collins as the kooky beatnik couple who lead the Powell character astray with hashish and methamphetamines.

You can also spot Nancy Walker and a young Rita Moreno in the Western Electric Company scenes as Ginny from Billing and Debbie from HR respectively. They're the ones that toss the ticker tape to 'a snowy blowy Christmas' during the Turkey Lurkey Time number.

Debi Rinolds actually made her film debut as one of the naked teen cherubs on the St. Louis exhibit at the fair.

They had to use teen girls because the teen boys Vincente had originally planned kept getting erections when that Drake guy would tickle them.....

Hedy Lamar as the indomitable and steadfast family maid is one of the best character portrayals in the film. Her character also promoting war bonds to the American people was genius.

Hedy Lamar invented Chapstick. Many people don't know that.

R112, I think you're confusing "Miracle in St. Louis" with "Breakfast is Born." The Western Electric Company scenes are from "Miracle in St. Louis" when Judy leaves the family homestead and goes to the city to make money to pay for Natalie's medical care.

The best part of the Western Electric Company scenes are Eve, Thelma, and Mary speak-singing "The Girl's Got Talent (With a Capital T&A)," as Nancy's character flits from man to man, office to office in the background. "She might type memo or take dictation, but her true talent lies in personal relations..." The slut.

I think it was telling that in reviewing the released version, none of the writers could figure out exactly what the "Miracle" was......

Apparently Lora Meredith’s scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

All of her lines were given to Amy.

Any proof to the rumor that the salesgirl hit when the trolley goes through the shop window was the first role for a young Lauren Bacall? You only see her from the back, but that scream of "Oh cuntsticks!" sure sounds like her.

Call me crazy, but the stop-animation scene of the talking snowman who tells the sick Natalie that "death is fun but cold" seemed like an afterthought.

R122 I guess it's sort of fucked that Kirk Douglas voiced the snowman, now that you mention it. The technicolor looks beautiful, however.

It's almost that time of year... who's ready to watch this classic on TCM?

Listening to Betty Hutton sing "Murder, He Says" became a beloved Christmas tradition in many American homes.

It is often forgotten that Hattie McDaniel spent several weeks shooting scenes for this film but was entirely cut from the finished film. In an attempt to update her sassy Mammy persona, they had her going around and slapping all the white gals and calling them white hussies. Sadly, it was too progressive for the time. All footage is believed to be as lost as her Oscar is.