Royal Wedding

For the ceremony, see Royal wedding.
Royal Wedding

Astaire and Powell in Royal Wedding
Directed by Stanley Donen
Produced by Arthur Freed
Screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner
Story by Alan Jay Lerner
Starring Fred Astaire
Jane Powell
Sarah Churchill
Peter Lawford
Music by Burton Lane
Uncredited:
Albert Sendrey
Cinematography Robert Planck
Edited by Albert Akst
Production
company
Release dates
  • March 8, 1951 (1951-03-08)
Running time
 93 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,661,000[2]
Box office $3,902,000[2]

Royal Wedding is a 1951 MGM musical comedy film starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell, with music by Burton Lane and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The film was directed by Stanley Donen; it was his second film and the first he directed on his own. It was released as Wedding Bells in the United Kingdom.[3]

The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh. Astaire and Powell are siblings in a song and dance duo, echoing the real-life theatrical relationship of Fred and Adele Astaire.

Royal Wedding is one of several MGM musicals that lapsed into public domain on their 29th anniversary due to failure to renew the copyright registration.[4]

Plot

The story sees brother and sister Tom and Ellen Bowen as stars of a show Every Night at Seven, a Broadway success. They are persuaded to take the show to London, capitalizing on an imminent royal wedding.

On the ship, Ellen meets and quickly falls in love with the impoverished but well-connected Lord John Brindale. Whilst casting the show in London, Tom falls in love with a newly engaged dancer, Anne Ashmond. Tom assists Anne to reconcile her estranged parents and also asks his agent to locate Anne's supposed fiancé in Chicago – only to discover that he's married.

Carried away by the emotion of the wedding, the two couples decide that they will also be married that day.

Cast

Peter Lawford, Jane Powell and Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding

Production

Stanley Donen and Jane Powell were not part of the film's original crew and cast; former dancer Charles Walters was the film's original director, with June Allyson as Astaire's co-star.[1] Judy Garland was then signed as Ellen, over the objection of Walters who had spent a "year-and-a-half nurturing her through her previous film, Summer Stock"; instead of listening to Walters' objection, Arthur Freed brought in Donen as director; Garland, who during rehearsal worked only half-days, started calling in sick as principal photography was to begin. That prompted Freed to replace her, which in turn caused MGM to cancel her contract with the studio, one that had lasted 14 years.[1]

Principal photography occurred in 1950, from July 6-August 24; retakes took place in mid-October.[1]

The scene featuring the song "You're All the World to Me" was filmed by building a set inside a revolving barrel and mounting the camera and its operator to an ironing board which could be rotated along with the room.[1]

Notable songs and dance routines

Astaire in "Sunday Jumps"
Astaire in "You're All the World to Me"

Reception

According to MGM records, the film earned $2,548,000 in the US and Canada and $1,354,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit to the studio of $584,000.[2]

Upon its release, Bosley Crowther said it had "a lively lot of dancing and some pleasantly handled songs"; according to Crowther, "Mr. Astaire has fared better in his lifetime-and he has also fared much worse."[7]

"Too Late Now" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 24th Academy Awards, losing the award to "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, that had been featured in Here Comes the Groom.

Home video and other formats

In 2007, Warner Home Video released Royal Wedding in a DVD set as part of its "Classic Musicals From The Dream Factory" series, along with "three fine-but-unexceptional films directed by Norman Taurog" and two other films: The Belle of New York and The Pirate.[8]

The film was later featured in an episode of Cinema Insomnia.[9] It is also distributed through Corinth Films.[10]

The songs listed above were published by MGM on an early 10 inch long play record recorded at 33 1/3 RPM (MGM E-543).

The song "Sunday Jumps" was referenced by Mel Gibson in What Women Want and by David Byrne in the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. "Sunday Jumps" was also parodied by Kermit the Frog in The Great Muppet Caper.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Miller, Frank. "Royal Wedding". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
  2. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  3. ↑ "Royal Wedding". 1951.
  4. ↑ Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. OCLC 15122313. Retrieved 2012-01-05.
  5. ↑ Archerd, Army (February 25, 1997). "Astaire won't deal with the Devil". Variety. Retrieved 2012-11-11.
  6. ↑ Mueller 1985, p. 327.
  7. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (March 9, 1951). "Fred Astaire and Jane Powell Seen in 'Royal Wedding' at Radio City Music Hall". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-11-11.
  8. ↑ Murray, Noel (August 1, 2007). "Classic Musicals From The Dream Factory — DVD —". Home Video Review. The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2012-11-11.
  9. ↑ "Cinema Insomnia, with your Horror Host, Mister Lobo! - SHOW INFORMATION". Archived from the original on March 28, 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
  10. ↑ "The Royal Wedding". Retrieved 2012-11-11.

References

External links

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