This is one of my favorite scenes from Meet Me In St. Louis, and it shows Vincente Minnelli's absolute mastery of staging and lighting. However silly and ordinary the situation and dialogue may be--intentionally so--Minnelli conjures up an increasingly dream-like mood. The color, the constantly roving camera, the cuts so subtle you barely know they're there...oh, and a song, even though it doesn't feel like a musical number.
Minnelli only made a handful of truly great films, but with this, The Bad And the Beautiful, The Band Wagon, Some Came Running and, of course, The Pirate (I do go on about that one, don't I?), he made his reputation as the greatest director of Hollywood's Golden Age.
