I get annoyed when I come across people who think history started the day they were born.

Recently I've seen several posters on the<a title="IMDB" href="http://www.imdb.com/"> Internet Movie Database</a> who make lists of the greatest films of all time and half of their list is films made since 1990, hardly a golden age of the movies. They include "Pulp Fiction," "Reservoir Dogs," the Lord of the Rings trilogy and all sorts of other special-effects fests, and the only films from before 1950 that ever make their lists are the ones everybody knows.

I understand their problem.

After all, if you accept the fact that important things happened before you were born, you may have to admit to yourself you are not the crown of creation.

I just finished watching a movie tonight, I'm ashamed to say for the first time, that I would stack up against any of those I mentioned from the last 15-20 years.

It's not Judy Garland's most famous movie, but the performance she gives as lovely Rose Smith, a turn-of-the-century beauty, in Vincente Minnelli's "Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944) was one of her very best. It's even got a song to compare with "Over the Rainbow."

[caption id="attachment_1469" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Judy Garland with Margaret O&#39;Brian"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1469" title="Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Meet_Me_in_St__Louis_MO_JG-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

There aren't any wizards or wicked witches, and there's nothing even to compare with a tornado for dramatic effect. It's simply the story of a loving family, and the biggest suspense is whether they will leave their home in St. Louis and move to New York.

It's interesting that there may have been more drama connected with the film itself than in the story. Garland reportedly balked at doing the film with O'Brian for fear that the 7-year-old child star would steal the show. O'Brian didn't get the part at first because her manager mother asked for too much money.

Once the filming was on, Garland insisted that the lyrics be changed in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" because she felt they were too downbeat for her character to sing to her little sister.

The original lyrics were more suited to 1944 America, with troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific, than to 1903 St. Louis in what was still a halcyon era for American families. Garland objected to singing "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last," which seems like a rather downbeat Christmas carol anyway.

In the end,<a title="Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo"> the song</a> worked beautifully as revised and the movie did as well. There are plenty of film aficianados who believe this film ushered in the Golden Age of MGM musicals, and if it was later surpassed by films like "Singing in the Rain," it stands the test of time as well as any of them.

Maybe one of these days I'll come up with a list of my own, of Hollywood's 50 best movies. I'll bet I could do a pretty good list and never include anything from the last 20 years.