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EVEN THOSE WHO don't worship at the altar of Judy, Judy, Judy know that the Technicolor nocturnal emission of MGM's two-disc Meet Me in St. Louis (Warner Home Video, $26.99) – the crown jewel in a recent slate of garnished Garland-centric releases – still has the ability to percolate giddy notions of a legendary "lost" Hollywood, all old-school dream factory-made shiny buttons and lushly rendered bows for the masses. The second disc's extras respectively credit producer Arthur Freed's tenacity, director Vincente Minelli's vision, the stalwart supporting cast, the Blane and Martin songs, and the film's ability to transition its star from ruby slippers to Mrs. Norman Maine dramatics as the driving force behind its canonization as a classic, but its primary cultural currency was, and remains, a single factor: nostalgia. And not just for studio-system glamour.

It doesn't take a blustery studio head to realize that a society buffeted by an economic depression and increasing WWII military casualties would embrace a quaint vision of a United States focused on world fairs, as opposed to world wars, and how old-fashioned small-town values made life seem much simpler. Seen through today's media-jaded eyes, of course, the irony of the movie's Norman Rockwell fantasy isn't lost even as we enjoy the mirage – it's still primo entertainment even if you know that the trolleys clang down a back-lot Main Street, the hunky boy next door is in the closet, and the wholesome heroine eventually ends up depressed and on downers. But refract it through the current mainstream attempts to turn the entire nation into Branson, Mo., and suddenly the escapism of the "greatest generation" seems like a template for present-day Americana. One hundred years have elapsed since the Smith family strode down Kensington Avenue, and the feeling that some want us to return to that faux-idyllic past as if a century never happened runs a current of metatextual tension under every reel. They don't make societies like they used to, and that thought worked wonders for 1944; however, may be a different story. (David Fear)

Look out, dummy

Adding another bend to the inadvertent theme – warped white Americana – of this week's column, we have Tourist Trap (Koch Full Moon Releasing, $9.98), the charming tale of a long-forgotten roadside wax museum populated by dummies, that is, any wayfaring stranger stupid enough to believe Slausen (Rifleman's Chuck Connors), the proud owner of Slausen's Lost Oasis, doesn't have a screw or 2, or 92, loose.

"Good lord I'm a great film!," proclaims the little speech bubble an Amoeba Music employee stickered to the unfriendly mannequin face on the front of this DVD; nudged by a vague memory of finding Tourist Trap perverse when I saw it on TV as a desperate-to-be-corrupted child, I reached into my pocket and forked out 10 Bush-economy dollars to bring it home. I viewed it at the proper time: around 2 a.m., as my boyfriend drifted in and out of sleep ("What the hell is this? You guys are sick") and my friend Ryan helped distinguish the Final Girl – whom he thinks dresses like Little House on the Prairie's Nellie Olsen – from her halter-topped, hot-pantsed hoochie mama friends.

Here is indisputable proof that, with the wrong combination of stolen ideas, an extremely derivative movie can turn out wonderfully unique. Distributed by Compass International Pictures a year after it had made a mint thanks to Halloween, Tourist Trap trades Leatherface for a Michael Myers-like plasterface and adds some vintage Brian DePalma elements (a taunting score by Pino Donaggio; bursts of telekinesis, though they're never explained by the script). Cinematographer Nicolas Josef von Sternberg – son of Josef! – is the true talent here, ending one bloody scene with a slow pan to a postcard-perfect sun-dappled window view. Numerous shots directly "quote from" Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, and Psycho; Connors's scenery-chewing flirtation with trannydom conjures visions of how the latter might have turned out if Hitchcock had cast, say, Ernest Borgnine as Norman Bates. If you don't think dozens of cackling mannequin heads are creepy, you're as crazy as Slausen. A definite contender for the trashiest PG movie ever made. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Is this Disneyland?

Robert Altman's 1977 3 Women (Criterion Collection, $39.95) finally gets the sparkling Criterion treatment, complete with a director's commentary that may or may not help the viewer understand what the heck is going on in this dreamy tale of personality theft and other weirdness in the California desert. Self-styled sophisticate Millie (Shelley Duvall) meets wide-eyed innocent Pinky (Sissy Spacek) at a low-rent rehab spa, where both girls spend the day escorting elderly patients through slow-motion exercise routines. Pinky becomes Millie's roommate and slowly begins usurping her identity. Why anyone would want to be like Millie is part of the mystery – though she fancies herself the most popular gal around, she's openly mocked by most everyone she meets. To Pinky, however, Millie is "the most perfect person." The final member of the titular trio is Willie (Janice Rule), a kohl-eyed and heavily pregnant artist who skulks around local faux-Western bar Dodge City – where all three women take a turn on the shooting range out back – as well as the girls' apartment complex, the Purple Sage. Willie's mostly silent presence is intensified by her artwork, which is everywhere: grotesque, menacing murals of lizardlike men with great curling tongues and prominent genitals. The paintings are among several details (Gerald Busby's ominously atonal score; a calculated use of color, especially yellow; the dreary dustiness of the landscape; an ever present water motif) that make 3 Women truly unforgettable. The performers are across-the-board outstanding – especially Duvall, who, according to Altman, wrote her character's diary-entry voice-overs and embellished Millie's obsession with McCall's-style cuisine. The dinner party preparation scenes ("We're having pigs in a blanket and chocolate puddin' tarts!") are reason enough to buy this disc and watch it often. (Cheryl Eddy)