shadows
by Douglas Messerli
The last few times I have watched this chestnut of a film, however, something else—a darker under image—has begun to seep through its lovely Technicolor tableaus; like shadows on a mid-summer day, in which this film begins, the gentle nostalgic view of American city life, reveals more substance but also more troubling issues upon each viewing.
The film is split into four seasons, beginning in the Summer of 1903 and ending in the Spring of 1904, with the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World’s Fair. Each season features a major celebration, most including music and dance.
Throughout this first summer, moreover, the sisters are constantly plotting events, covered by small lies. The most innocent of these is Esther’s hiding of John Truett’s hat at the party, and her plea that he help her put out the lights since she is afraid of mice. Somewhat more serious is their plot to have dinner an hour earlier than usual so that Rose can have a long distance telephone conversation with her boyfriend away from the family. This entails the girl’s encouraging their maid Katie (Marjorie Main) to lie:
Esther: Oh, Katie, they were just little white lies.
Katie: A lie’s a lie. Dressin’ it in white don’t help it. And just why
was I lying this time?
The lie, it soon appears, has not been necessary, since everyone in the family except the father (Leon Ames) knows that Rose is expecting a call. When, after refusing the early meal, the father discovers that he is the only who has not been told, he is justifiably hurt: “When was I voted out of this family.”
These are all small events, nearly painless incidents that occur perhaps in every family. But far darker images of life lie in the imagination of the youngest member of the Smith family, Tootie, who lives a private life of dying dolls that might be more at home in the Addams family. Joining the iceman on his rounds, Tootie notes of the doll in her arms:
'Tootie' Smith: Poor Margeretha, I've never seen her look so pale.
Mr. Neely the Iceman: The sun oughta do her some good.
'Tootie' Smith: I suspect she won't live through the night, she has
four fatal diseases.
Mr. Neely the Iceman: And it only takes one.
'Tootie' Smith: But she's going to have a beautiful funeral,
in a cigar box my Papa gave me, all wrapped up in silver paper.
Mr. Neely the Iceman: That's the way to go, if you have to go.
'Tootie' Smith: Oh, she has to go.
Throughout the film Tootie and her slightly older sister, Agnes, conjure up a world of horror and terrorism. One of the most disturbing family discussions occurs in the Fall sequence of the film as the girls, dressed up as ghouls Halloween, speak with Katie:
Agnes Smith: Katie, where's my cat?
Katie the Maid: I don't know... a little while ago, she got in
my way and I kicked her down the cellar steps. I could hear
her spine hitting on every step.
Agnes Smith: Oh, if you killed her, I'll kill you! I'll stab you
to death in your sleep, then I'll tie your body to two
wild horses until you're pulled apart.
Katie the Maid: Oh, won't that be terrible, now? There's your cat.
A few minutes later, the girls describe why they are going to “trick” (as in “trick or treat”) an elderly neighbor man:
'Tootie' Smith: We'll fix him fine. It'll serve him right for poisoning cats... He buys
meat and then he buys poison and then he puts them all together. Agnes Smith: And then he burns the cats at midnight in his furnace. You could smell
the smoke...
'Tootie' Smith: ...and Mr. Braukoff was beating his wife with a red hot poker... and
Mr. Braukoff has empty whiskey bottles in his cellar.
Tootie, not allowed to get near the Halloween bonfire because of her age, is the only one who will “fix” Mr. Braukoff by throwing flower into his face. For her the scene is one of true horror—she is a true believer in the myths about him that she and Agnes have recounted—while we perceive him as a rather sweet man with a friendly dog.
Perhaps it is almost inevitable that these to fantasists later that night decide to throw a dummy on the tracks, almost causing the trolley to go. John Truett, who has witnessed the event, hides them in a nearby alley, but Tootie escapes, claiming John has tried to “kill” her. Indeed, she needs stitches. Esther, shocked by Tootie’s claim, runs next door, slugging and kicking the man she proclaims to love in revenge, a strange version of what one might describe as “domestic violence.”
Of course, once she discovers the truth, she returns with apologies that end in a kiss. But the shadows of events remain. There is a dark world in this paradisiacal St. Louis that no one, except perhaps for Tootie, is really talking about.
Further darkness descends soon after, as the father announces his plan to move his family to New York. Just as the family has not consulted him about Rose’s plans, he has not talked about the consequences of such a move with anyone, and the rest of the family is horrified by the impending transition in their lives, Tootie, once again, expressing it most bluntly:
'Tootie' Smith: It'll take me at least a week to dig up all my dolls in the
cemetery.
Although they ultimately accommodate themselves to their new fate, by the Winter sequence new worries and fears have beset them. Rose has no a date to the annual Christmas dance and must go with her brother Lon. At the last moment before the dance, John Truett arrives to tell Esther that his tuxedo is still at the cleaners. Their Grandfather (Harry Davenport) dapperly becomes John’s replacement. He is a man who, throughout the film, wears many hats, and has a large hat collection. But the truth remains: the family is escorting one another to the ball, seemingly isolated from the community they love.
But the very last scene of the film reveals other shadows that we have sensed all along. This is a story of a world already lost. In a short time the two elder daughters will be married and have left home. But even more importantly, the whole world it has pictured will have died. From the very beginning of the film, Minnelli and his writers have subtly interwoven themes of decay and death into the very structure of the work. Obviously, Tootie has been obsessed with the subject, but even the young Esther has reminded her suitor, by her choice of perfume, of his grandmother. At another point, her grandfather describes her as "the very image" of her dead grandmother. Esther, in turn, describes her older sister as becoming “an old maid.” Underlying the joyful festivities of family life is the very quickness of the seasons. By the time Spring arrives all the women family members move outside the home dressed in white; only the mother has a touch of lavender in her apparel. The men are dressed in beige and gray. The lovely colors of that first Summer scene have seemingly been washed away. One might almost describe them as already being ghosts, far more ghoulish, in a sense, that the young Agnes and Tootie dressed for Halloween.
Minnelli begins with a sun-filled, back-lot exterior—the Smith
house, standing at the crest of its own little hill—but concludes with a darkened, soundstage interior, dressed to represent the
fair's opening night. The progress is not one of growth and ex-
pansion, but of the increasing darkness and confinement.
Two small events occur that perhaps express yet deeper shadows creeping over their lives. As they move toward the restaurant where they plan to have dinner, they each move in different directions, until the father calls them together to lead them off. They have become lost in their own hometown. A moment later, after the fairgound buildings become awash in light, Tootie asks the crucial question: “They won’t ever tear it down, will they?” The grandfather blusteringly answers: “Well they better not!” The film’s weak ending, echoing Judy’s Garland’s phrase “There’s no place like home” from The Wizard of Oz, cannot possibly erase the doubts the two events have created. In reality, only two of the St. Louis World’s Fair 1,500 buildings actually survived: the St. Louis Museum of Art and a building now on the campus of Washington University, Brookings Hall. The others, made of plaster of Paris and other cheap materials, were only meant to last a year or two. The same year’s summer Olympic Games would forever change the size and look of the city; St. Louis was no longer a small hometown.
The era, of course, did quickly pass. Ten years later any younger male of this story would probably have been drafted into World War I. Those who returned came back to a different universe.
As for Tootie? Sally Benson, upon whom she was based, never got visit the St. Louis World’s Fair, her father having moved the family to New York City.
Despite its glories, it was perhaps a society too based on myths, small lies, and impermanent values to last.
Los Angeles, Christmas Day, 2011
Reprinted from American Cultural Treasures (January 2012)
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