"[2] She returned to dancing, performing at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City and the Club Versailles, where she was spotted by Arthur Freed, a producer at Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

She was offered a contract with Goldwyn Studios, but ultimately decided to sign with MGM so that she could showcase her dancing ability.

[6] Bremer made her screen debut to excellent notices in director Vincente Minnelli's smash hit Technicolor musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) as Rose Smith, Judy Garland's older sister, and followed this with a starring role opposite Fred Astaire in the musical fable Yolanda and the Thief (1945).

Despite sumptuous production values and a staff of high-priced talent behind the scenes (directed again by Vincente Minnelli from a story by Ludwig Bemelmans, with an original score by Harry Warren and producer/songwriter Arthur Freed, and choreographed by Fred Astaire and Eugene Loring), it was a box-office failure.

The film's ambitious surrealist fantasy theme was not popular with wartime audiences, and Bremer, a newcomer in her first starring role, took most of the blame.

Her last major film musical was the lavish Jerome Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), in which Bremer had some good dramatic scenes and dances with Van Johnson.

She had met and fallen in love with the son of the former president of Mexico, Abelardo Luis Rodriguez,[9] who bore the same name as his father.