I don't know that it can be fair to judge this movie on modern standards. If you think about it, Oklahoma! hadn't been produced yet, and so if you look at the other things that were being made at the time it was really quite a move forward. The story was linear, most of the songs built on the story. Sometimes it just stopped for a song but that was the exception rather than the rule. By todays standards, yes, it's hokey and old fashioned, but, well, it is over 55 years old, and some of the things that we look at as hokey and old fashioned hadn't even been done yet. So it just seems to me that the judgments by the presenters were a bit harsh.
However, I want to add to this criticism that I love your podcast, thanks for all that you do, and I look forward to the next one.

Yes, Oklahoma had not been made yet, but many musicals had been created, and several of them having a wonderful plot line. For instance Top Hat by all accounts is a wonderful film. and it precedes Meet Me in St. Louis by nearly ten years.
So they only question I have left is With the arrival of Mamma Mia to the Cinemas will we have another Meet me In St. Louis? I think it would be verry intersting to watch them both and then see if we really have progressed in musicals.

even back then there were better plot lines and dialouge then in meet me in st. louis