From MGM
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Starring
Rex Harrison
Kay Kendall
Sandra Dee
John Saxon
Angela Lansbury
Peter Myers
Diane Clare
Another one from Vincente Minnelli... two in a row. Having just watched it again, it's like visiting a dear family that you haven't seen for years and you're once again taken it by the ditziness and the laughter they provide and the warm welcome. Far and away the best thing about The Reluctant Debutante is the zany antics of its leading lady, Kay Kendall. If you don't know her, you simply don't know what you're missing.
Seventeen-year old American Jane Broadbent (Dee) arrives in London to visit her upper class, English father Jimmy (Harrison), whom she hasn't seen in some time, and meet for the first time, her stepmother Sheila (Kendall).
Before she can catch her breath, Jane realizes Sheila is a bit of a lovable, spacey nitwit. Jane's immediate liking of her stepmother is tested, however, when Sheila, with a dramatic flourish, announces that Jane will have a coming out party. A what, Jane exclaims.
Sheila explains that a young woman of an aristocratic background and current privileged circumstances who has reached young adulthood is presented to the public, generally at a debutante ball. Eligible bachelors are brought in to get things heated up. Sheila is particularly anxious to get the ball rolling (pun intended) because Queen Elizabeth (in real life) was about to put the kibosh on the practice.
We need some conflict to get the comedy rolling and it comes in the form of David Parkson (Saxon) as an American drummer who is playing in the band Sheila hired for the gig. Sheila tries hard to get Jane interested in David Fenner (Myers), a stuffy royal guardsman who creeps out Jane. The debutante is, however, feeling frisky over Saxon, much to Sheila's chagrin. The two men both being named David works into some laughs. As the youngsters become more romantically involved, Sheila and now Jimmy are apoplectic that Jane has taken a shine to a commoner, and a musician, no less.
The parents set out to keep the kids apart, resulting in one amusing scene after another and ending up with some very funny stuff involving the four principles in the elegant living room of the Broadbent flat. Of course none of it is to be taken seriously, but if one pretends to, it's funnier yet. Looking closely at the storyline, much of the fun comes out of the fact that the adults act like kids and the kids act like adults.
The film was not a success in America at the time but has gathered momentum over the years as Anglophilia took over. For some, like me, it was always a success. I usually saw and enjoyed Minnelli films and I liked this cast.
Minnelli usually had a distinct attitude about his stories and characters and he would be certain to arrange some sort of narrative to alert audiences as to what that attitude was. I didn't find that so in this film... it's what you find it to be... light and warm and funny and no need to get all psychological about the characters.
Within Minnelli's canon of films-- Meet Me in St. Louis, Father of the Bride, An American in Paris, The Bad and the Beautiful, Lust for Life, Home from the Hill and also in 1958, the Oscar-winning best picture, Gigi-- The Reluctant Debutante cannot compete. Minnelli enjoyed making it particularly because he was so taken with Kendall, whom he hadn't previously known.
Kendall and Harrison were married in real-life as well. She was the second of his six wives and his briefest marriage and because of its brevity, it was likely his calmest. Kendall would have provided much humor and she adored him. He knew it and she knew that he needed to be adored. They married in 1957, made Debutante in 1958 and Kendall died of leukemia in 1959. He and the doctor were the only ones who knew. Even Kendall didn't know, despite her ever-failing health, until the very end.
She was a beautiful lady (with a nose I just loved) who was dressed to the nines by Pierre Balmain to play the elegant Sheila Broadbent. Her manners are impeccable but sometimes in the moment of a flowery display of those manners, of the regal bearing, she falls or trips over a throw rug. Minnelli said she was a glamour queen with the soul of a clown.
She was never very well known to Americans. Most of her 30 films were British. She worked opposite Robert Taylor in an American movie in 1955, Quentin Durward, although it was filmed in Britain. The same year she made The Reluctant Debutante, she starred opposite Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor in Les Girls. Her final film was the comedy, Once More with Feeling costarring Yul Brynner. She was sensational in all and none did well in the U.S.
It took years for Americans to truly notice Kendall but once they did, these films took on a new hue. She was never better than in The Reluctant Debutante. There have been few movie comediennes this talented and never was there one more beautiful. I suppose it's occurred to you I am a fan.
Oddly, Harrison never particularly charmed me and I confess to not seeing most of his work. I did see and like him in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Happy Thieves, Cleopatra, My Fair Lady, The Honey Pot and this one-- in which I thought he was pretty perfect. Here he's so light and fun and obviously so whipped to be making a second movie with his lovely wife. She must have helped raise his level of comedy.
Comedy was never a mainstay for Saxon... in fact, he's done little. Frankly, neither his nor Dee's roles were a great deal more than decorative. This is the Harrisons all the way. But Saxon is certainly attractive and handled his role with aplomb.
Saxon and Dee had just come off making the teen romance The Restless Years and two years later would make the melodramatic Portrait in Black. The studios wanted to make them an item, at least in films, and the public like their pairing.
Saxon would say years later that he always thought there was something odd about working with Dee in at least the first two films. She was an 18-year old playing one year younger or so everyone assumed. But in fact she was only 14 years old. Her ambitious stage mother wanted her to have more adult roles so they lied about her age. Try not to let that creep you out but ewwww.
Dee, too, was fine in the role, her third. Worldwide fame would come to her the following year with the releases of A Summer Place and Imitation of Life. Her fame and popularity were meteoric.
Lansbury's role, while small, was significant. Much of what her character does, as Sheila's so-called friend, sets some plot points in motion. It was the secondary type of role she did so well. We did not know at this point what exemplary work she would do in the 60's.
The Reluctant Debutante may never be one of your top favorite movies but it is an utter delight, a good 50's film, one of those utterly perfect rainy Sunday afternoon experiences. Other than Kendall, one thing I loved is this is just soooo British. I knew that because, I swear, they say darling about a hundred times.
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Hollywood Brunettes
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