ROYAL WEDDING (1951) C 94m dir: Stanley Donen

w/Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, Keenan Wynn, Albert Sharpe, Viola Roache, Henri Letondal, James Finlayson, Alex Frazer

From The Movie Guide: "On the eve of the royal wedding of then-Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, an American brother and sister vaudeville act, Ellen (Jane Powell) and Tom Bowen (Fred Astaire), ventures to London to perform. There Tom falls in love with Anne Ashmond (Sarah Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, making her only US film appearance), a music hall dancer, while Ellen becomes involved with an English lord (Peter Lawford). The picture ends with couples married, after the usual misunderstandings and rocky romantic plot twists. That's about it for the story, but what shines here are the great songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane (among them the Oscar-nominated 'Too Late Now'), the singing, and the dancing, including two of the most spectacular Astaire routines ever devised. In the first, he dances with a hat rack that nearly comes alive as his partner; in the second and most celebrated, the legendary hoofer seems to be dancing on the walls and ceiling of a room --- accomplished by building the room so it could be rotated at the same speed as the camera, with the camera operator strapped in and shooting upside down. Although Nick Castle is listed as choreographer, it seems likely that it was Astaire's genius that inspired these dazzling routines. When all is said and done, Stanley Donen's first solo directorial assignment, after his work with Gene Kelly, is a lovely bit of frou-frou."

From the Bright Lights Film Journal website (www.brightlightfilms.com), "Astaire Reborn! Jane Powell Gives Fred a Lift in Royal Wedding" by Alan Vannemann:

"'I hope he knew how much the world loved him.'

"After the severe misfortune of being forced to appear with, and take second billing to, Betty Hutton in Let's Dance, Fred Astaire deserved some good luck and he got it in his next picture, Royal Wedding. Back in the day, Americans took the British royal family very seriously, and the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth, heir to the British throne, to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, was considered a sufficient hook for a film shot in 1951.

"June Allyson was the first choice as Fred’s leading lady, though it’s hard to say why, because she hadn’t made much of a splash as a musical comedy star, mostly appearing in specialty numbers. But she was an up-and-coming star, cast as Jo in the 1949 remake of Little Women, which also starred Elizabeth Taylor as Amy and Janet Leigh as Meg. June exited the picture after she discovered she was pregnant, and Judy Garland was cast as her replacement but eventually bailed or was bailed. Ultimately, MGM fired her, not just from the picture but from the studio, and replaced her with Jane Powell, who proved to be a little gift from heaven for Fred and for us.

"Someone could, I believe, write an intriguing Ph.D. thesis on the early films of Jane Powell. Powell was signed by MGM at age 14 in 1943, and was groomed as a replacement for Judy Garland in the teen musical genre, which Judy had made enormously successful, in partnership with Mickey Rooney. Jane lacked Judy’s preternatural oomph, but she could hit high C, which Judy couldn’t, and which, given the curious state of Hollywood in the forties, helped create that most unusual genre, the teen/light classical/Latin musical.

"Books have been written about the flood of musical talent that poured from Europe to the U.S. during the thirties, thanks to the rise of fascism and, eventually, the outbreak of World War II. Most are devoted to the 'outrageous' incongruities of geniuses like Arnold Schoenberg struggling to write for MGM and ending up eking out a living giving lessons to morons. Rather less attention is given to more flexible talents like Spanish pianist Jose Iturbi, who knew how to work a crowd and who appeared successfully in films throughout the forties.

"A recording by Iturbi of Chopin’s 'Polonaise in A Flat,' performed in the film A Song to Remember, sold a million copies in 1945. Anything involving the number 'a million' is going to catch Hollywood’s attention. Most of the musicals featuring Iturbi had a mix of classical and pop, but some, like Music for Millions, had an almost exclusively classical score. Chopin was no Irving Berlin, of course, but unlike Irving he didn’t demand $250,000 per picture.

"At the same time, because World War II shut off the European market, a lot of WWII films were given a Latin flavor, and this continued after the war as well. Some genius at MGM decided to mix the two together in relatively low-budget films, many of them with a largely teen cast. Powell, a newcomer with a light soprano voice, fit right in. The first of these outre concoctions, A Holiday in Mexico, was released in 1946. Xavier Cugat, very popular at the time, appears with Jane and Jose, who brought along his sister Amparo Iturbi, also a pianist. Jane, Jose, and Amparo handled the fancy stuff, while Cugie kept things cooking with 'The Walter Winchell Rhumba.'

"Jane was reunited with Jose and Amparo in Three Daring Daughters, with Jane’s idol, and film’s leading soprano, Jeanette MacDonald, in the lead. The flick has a seriously coloratura soundtrack, but just to keep things real, Jane joins Jose in Bobby Troup’s salute to postwar randomness, 'Route 66,' which would definitely be worth hearing. Unfortunately, this film is still not out on DVD.

"OK, we’ve kind of lost Fred, haven’t we? Anyway, June got pregnant, Judy got fired, and Jane got hired, and it’s hard to believe that either of the first two could have filled Jane’s shoes. She’s short, blonde, and bubbly, and an ever-evanescent ball of fire, and quite likely the best partner Fred ever had in his late films. As a dancer her technique certainly couldn’t match either Vera-Ellen or Cyd Charisse, but her vivacity was more than a match for either. Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner took his first shot at writing a screenplay for Royal Wedding, generously helping himself to a slice of Fred’s bio, a trick that would be repeated in The Band Wagon a couple of years later. Lerner cast Fred and Jane as Tom and Ellen Bowen, 'Broadway’s favorite brother and sister,' lifting directly from Fred’s early career with sister Adele, marrying her off to an English lord, which happened in real life as well. In real life, Fred was thirty years older than Jane, but somehow the film gets away with it. Hey, this is show business, right?

"Lerner also supplies the lyrics, while Burton Lane gives us the music. None of the tunes became a standard, but Lerner’s clever lyrics for 'How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life?,' which run on and on but never run out of gas, provide the foundation for what I find to be the funniest song and dance number on film.

"Royal Wedding begins the way every Fred Astaire film should have, with a dance number, 'Every Night at Seven.' Fred is a bored king, and Jane is a perky little maid, and, well, one thing leads to another. 'Every Night at Seven' doesn’t get much respect from the critics --- uber Fredician John Mueller finds it 'rather uninspired' --- but I loved it the first time I saw it and I still do. I am a sucker for the French maid thing, and even without fishnets and garter belts Jane’s thighs look awfully damn tempting. And, thighs or no thighs, for me this is Fred and Ginger reborn --- yeah, Fred’s a little gray and we don’t have a big black and white set, but I don’t care.

"The choreography for 'Every Night at Seven' is fresh and witty, reminiscent of Fred’s 'getting to know you' dances with Ginger --- 'I'll be Hard to Handle' from Roberta and 'Isn’t This a Lovely Day to Be Caught in the Rain' from Top Hat.

"Once the kids are off-stage, we learn that Fred’s the worrier and Jane’s the pretty one who doesn’t have to worry --- just as Fred and Adele were in real life. Jane has at least two or three stage door Johnnies on a string at any one time who are prone to comical fisticuffs. It would be so nice to get away from it all! Fortunately, their agent has an out: they’ve been booked in London, just in time for the royal wedding! That is so cool! They sail for London in a week!

"While boarding the ship --- it's French, but if it has a name, I missed it --- Jane spots a smoothie with a la-dee-da English accent bidding an anguished farewell to several babes in succession, using the same romantic line for each babe. There’s nothing like shared shallowness to bring folks together, and Jane quickly acquires a new admirer, 'Lord John Brindale,' played by the stickish Peter Lawford.

"Naturally, Fred and Jane are asked to perform for the ship’s passengers and naturally, Jane dedicates a romantic ballad, 'Open Your Eyes,' to Peter. Fred and Jane then perform a nice, romantic dance number, complete in itself, really, that then slides into comedy, thanks to some high seas. Both the 'real' dance and the comic one are quite good --- more satisfying than another 'funny' dance --- 'I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket' --- that Fred and Ginger did in Follow the Fleet, a number that I always found frustrating because we never got to see the 'real' dance.

"Once Fred and Jane hit London, there’s romance for Fred in the form of Sarah Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston, although she did not bill herself as such. Sarah is supposed to be a ballerina, but her dances with Fred are scarcely memorable. Her main plot function is to inspire Fred to dance on the ceiling, and the walls, in the very memorable 'You’re All the World to Me.' If you’ve seen this number a few times, you can see Fred brace himself as the room rotates and he shifts from one surface to the next, but the sheer enthusiasm and delight with which he explores his newfound freedom to walk on walls never fails to sell the bit and make it seamless. This is so much fun! Why didn’t I ever think of it before!

"Despite all the romance, not to mention the royal nuptials, Fred and Jane do have a show to do, and they come through in the classic 'How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life?' Powell is absolutely perfect as a tough little Jane pushed to the wall by Fred’s repetitive boorishness, while Fred, in a flamboyantly tasteless outfit, gloats over his endless infidelities and outrages. Lerner’s clever lyrics, running through two complete choruses, seem untoppable, but the dance that follows is a match. Powell, blank-faced and earnestly chewing gum, keeps a Keaton-like deadpan throughout the slapstick knockabout, demolishing Fred’s hat and eventually beating him to the floor. As a topper, they stay in character during the curtain call, Jane ordering a sullen Fred around with fierce tosses of her head and upper torso.

"As we head down the home stretch, neither the Jane-Peter nor the Fred-Sarah coupling is generating much heat, so Lane and Lerner come up with a big Caribbean production number, 'I Left My Hat in Haiti,' which, like 'Every Night at Seven,' doesn’t get a lot of respect from the critics. Fred looks great in a tropic suit the hue of fresh butter, and the enigmatic lyrics about a lady who seemingly collects gentlemen’s fedoras give a slight flavor of mystery. There’s quite a bit of nice dancing, and some nice local color --- if you can get your mind around the idea of an all-white Haiti, which I admit is a stretch. The problem is that there’s no payoff. Jane shows up, but she’s in a bit part. Is she the hat lady? We don’t really know. There’s no tension, no conflict, no romance, and no release.

"There is more to Royal Wedding --- three marriages, as a matter of fact --- but no one’s paying much attention. But after what was easily Fred’s best picture since Easter Parade, no one’s complaining."

ROYAL WEDDING was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song ("Too Late Now" by Burton Lane, Alan Jay Lerner).