Movie Review by Alice Castle
Starring: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, John Lund, Louis Armstrong
Director: Charles Walters
The MGM musical version of the 1940’s romantic comedy THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, HIGH SOCIETY has been re-released 46 years after its first outing by the British Film Institute. Starring Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong, every song is a winner and the music makes up for the rather stilted dialogue and predictable plot.
Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly), a bored heiress is preparing to marry the rather dull but stable (and undoubtedly loaded) George Kittredge (John Lund), having left her last husband – hopeless romantic and jazz composer C K Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby) – for being far too creative and therefore in the land of East Coast millionaires, erratic and not such a wise bet. Sent to cover the wedding are ace-reporter Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and his loyal partner in Hello-magazine-style crime photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm).
As everyone congregates for the wedding celebrations and Mike searches for the story behind the story, romantic hell breaks out – in what was probably a very risque plot for 1956. The musical highlights are for jazz lovers with ‘Now you has Jazz’ a Bing and Louis duet and ‘High Society’, and if jazz is not your thing the lovely ‘Well did you evah’? – a Cole Porter classic. Besides it’s worth going to see just for the beautiful Grace Kelly wardrobe.
