[ April 13, 2026 ]
Royal Wedding (1951), starring the incomparable Fred Astaire and Jane Powell. You know I couldn’t resist ….. after the royal snub of the Obamas 🙂 Way go, O. The dancing is spectacular.
Excerpt of The NY Times review (1951):
Playing a brother-sister dance team that goes to London at royal wedding-time, there to be occupied with romance quite as much as with their musical show, Mr. Astaire and Miss Powell are at their cutest in a ragtag-and-bar-rel-house affair called “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life.” In this one the couple shimmy-shammy and knock each other—and the audience—dead. Give Mr. Astaire a hunk of rhythm, a straw boater and a girl, and he’s your man.
ADVERTISEMENTOr give him a novelty arrangement and a little space in which to move around and he can make old Terpsichore holler, no, matter how average the song. One “single” he does in a gymnasium, with a hatrack and dumbbells for props, bears the old Astaire trademark, and he likewise makes quite a rib-tickling thing out of dancing on walls and ceiling in another done with trick photography. The “I Left My Hat in Haiti” number, which is the big production blow-out of the film, dressed in hot Caribbean duds and scenery, is a let-down when it finally comes along.
While Miss Powell’s performing as a dancer is mainly that of a little girl stringing along, she turns out the vocals in nice fashion and lends considerable feminine charm. “Too Late Now” is a love song which she sings to Peter Lawford wistfully and “The Happiest Day of My Life” finds her pealing considerable joy to the world. We can’t say too much for her choice of fellows, but she does the best she can with what she has.
Keenan Wynn gets into the picture now and then in the roles of twins, a New York agent and his Anglicized brother, who mainly converse on the transatlantic telephone. The act, done with split-frame photography, is not quite as good as it sounds. As an English show-girl whom Mr. Astaire finds beguiling, Sarah Churchill presents an air of serene detachment, and Albert Sharpe is mildly comical as her pa—her pa, in this case, being a barkeep and not Britain’s ex-Prime Minister. The royal couple, not being under contract to M-G-M, do not appear in the film.
ROYAL WEDDING, story and screen play by Alan Jay Lerner; directed by Stanley Donen; produced by Arthur Freed for Metro-Goldwyn-Maye
Tom Bowen . . . . . Fred Astaire
Ellen Bowen . . . . . Jane Powell
Lord John Brindale . . . . . Peter Lawford
Anne Ashmond . . . . . Sarah Churchill
Irving and Edgar Klinger . . . . . Keenan Wynn
James Ashmond . . . . . Albert Sharpe
Sarah Ashmond . . . . . Viola Roache
Purser . . . . . Henri Letondal
Cabby . . . . . James Finlayson
Click link below to view the film:
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