Royal Wedding

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

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. Judy Garland was then signed as Ellen due to Allyson's pregnancy, 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 with Jane Powell, which in turn caused MGM to cancel Garland's contract with the studio, one that had lasted 14 years.

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

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.

Notable songs and dance routines

The songs in Royal Wedding were written by Burton Lane (music) and Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics). The dances were choreographed by Nick Castle.

Reception

According to MGM's 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. The film was listed by Variety as opne of the top box office hits of 1951.

Upon its release, Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that the film 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".

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Royal Wedding had a score of 91% approval rating based on 23 reviews, The site's consensus reads: "Vintage MGM musical stuff, characterized by Stanley Donen's fleet direction and some amazing dance performances from star Fred Astaire."

Awards and honors

"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, which featured in Here Comes the Groom.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

Home video

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.

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

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.