Directed by:
Charles VidorComposer:
Bronislau KaperCast:
Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Agnes Moorehead, Jessie Royce Landis, Brian Aherne, Leo G. Carroll, Van Dyke Parks, Bess Flowers, Leslie Denison (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Even though HIGH SOCIETY was released afterward, this was Kelly's last film before ascending the throne of Monaco on April 18, 1956. It's early in the century, and Kelly is a young woman of noble parentage. Her mother, Jessie Royce Landis, is eager to marry her off to Guinness, the crown prince. Kelly is being tutored by Jourdan and falls in love with him during the strains of a Kaper tune, "The Swan Waltz," but it's for naught. Landis' brother is Brian Aherne, who has given up the royal ermine for monk's cloth and is against Landis' obvious attempt to marry off Kelly. He thinks his niece should be allowed to make her own decisions of the heart. Landis' sister, Winwood, is a dotty old woman who has all the best comedy lines as she comments on the shenanigans in a pixilated fashion, sort of like the female version of Cecil Kellaway in so many movies. Guinness comes to see Kelly and doesn't pop the question, so Jourdan is enlisted to play a love rival, thus causing Guinness to finally ask for her hand and be granted it. The story, written in 1922, was vaguely about the Hapsburgs and in 1956 it seemed out of synch with what was going on in the world, though not necessarily what was transpiring in Kelly's life. She had gone from a Philadelphia debutante to model to award-winning actress, and was now about to become a queen. This movie would have been immeasurably helped by songs and screamed to be treated as a musical rather than a straight comedy-drama. It's the stuff that operettas are made of, and many of the anti-monarchist jokes are totally lost on modern audiences. The Biltmore estate in North Carolina stands in for the European castle. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Grace Kelly
USA
Best movies:
Rear Window (1954)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
The Country Girl (1954)
Alec Guinness
UK
Best movies:
Louis Jourdan
France
Best movies:
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Columbo (1971) (series)
The V.I.P.s (1963)
Agnes Moorehead
USA
Best movies:
Citizen Kane (1941)
Caged (1950)
The Stratton Story (1949)
Jessie Royce Landis
USA
Best movies:
Bon Voyage! (1962)
North by Northwest (1959)
Goodbye Again (1961)
Brian Aherne
UK
Best movies:
Juarez (1939)
Underground (1928)
I Confess (1953)
Leo G. Carroll
UK
Best movies:
Song of Love (1947)
North by Northwest (1959)
Captains Courageous (1937)
Van Dyke Parks
USA
Best movies:
The Swan (1956)
The Two Jakes (1990)
He Said, She Said (1991)
Bess Flowers
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Rear Window (1954)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Leslie Denison
UK
Best movies:
Song of Love (1947)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
The Court Jester (1955)
Doris Lloyd
UK
Best movies:
The Sound of Music (1965)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
To Each His Own (1946)
Edith Barrett
USA
Best movies:
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
Bernadette (1943)
Jane Eyre (1943)
Giuseppe Addobbati
Italy
Best movies:
La dolce vita (1960)
The Conformist (1970)
War and Peace (1956)
Robert Coote
UK
Best movies:
Othello (1952)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Gene Coogan
USA
Best movies:
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The People Against O'Hara (1951)
Joe Canutt
USA
David Thursby
UK
Best movies:
Captains Courageous (1937)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
The Heiress (1949)
Don Anderson
USA
Best movies:
North by Northwest (1959)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Ottola Nesmith
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Estelle Winwood
UK
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
The Name of the Game (1968) (series)
Un cadavre au dessert (1976)