Royal Wedding (1951)

Famous brother-sister dance team (that’s a thing) are hired to perform for the Queen’s wedding, so they hop on a ship and set sail for a caricature of Merry Old England. On board playa sista (Jane Powell) meets up and falls in love with fellow playa and rat-packer Peter Lawford, who in this context is a British Lord. Brother (Fred Astaire) must wait until England before he falls for … Winston Churchill’s daughter? Ok, so that happened. Will love bloom? Right, we addressed that.

Jane Powell playing Astaire’s sister defied credibility as she was and very much looked thirty years his junior. She acted in only twenty two features, of which I’ve only seen the problematic Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Here she used a vocal technique called screeching. She passed away only last fall.

The only thing I knew about Peter Lawford is that he was in Frank Sinatra’s rat pack. Was, as in, was kicked out because of something to do with the Kennedys and Sinatra's ties to the mob. Probably more to it than that. Peter's career would falter and would die at 61, because of drink, I’m guessing.

Old buddy Keenan Wynn has a vaguely amusing double role. He has appeared in a ton of things, both great and terrible. I’ll always remember him as Winter. But let’s talk about Mae Clarke. She was a natural for sexy pre-code roles but personal problems and a car accident put her career on the skids. When sexy roles dried up during production code enforcement, she was relegated to B pictures. I suspect, however, that her slide had more to do with personal issues than production codes. Here, she earned the role of “Telephone Operator #1 (uncredited)”.

Astaire dances with a coat rack, on a rocking ship, and finally on the ceiling, using the rotating set originated by my buddy-pal Buster Keaton. If that is your thing, likely you will more than tolerate Royal Wedding. I’m sure it represents Astaire’s latter career just fine. For me, the song and dance numbers were tedious, the chemistry unconvincing, the story paper-thin, and the comedy incidental. AMRU 2.5.

Holiday Inn (1942)

A song and dance team breaks up because Jim (Bing Crosby) wants to run a country inn in Connecticut. Lila and Ted (Fred Astaire) decide not to retire along with him because they are in love. Jim’s plan for his inn is to be open only on holidays. Thus, Holiday Inn.

Lila goes off and marries a millionaire so Ted shows up drunk at the Inn and sees his future dance and maybe love partner performing. But sneaky Bing … I mean Jim tries to keep her secret and all to himself, so let the conniving begin.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas was written for the movie and fast became the number 1 selling single of all time. Bing would sing it in a Christmas musical two more times. Director Mark Sandrich called it the ABC of American musical comedies: Astaire, Berlin, and Crosby. All three were and would continue to be on quite a tare.

The characters say that there are fifteen holidays but they show only eight or nine. But it’s Lincoln’s Birthday that garnished the most praise. No, praise isn’t the right word. What do you call it when white people sing in black face? Whatever that is, it garnished the most of it. To be fair the intent was to be respectful and it made sense in context. The scene is frequently removed from TV airings but TCM showed it uncut.

The song and dance numbers could be tedious and the story is paper thin, but the charming on-screen chemistry and witty banter pulled it through. If the musical numbers are your thing, then you’ll love it. AMRU 3.5. Oh, and yea. The hotel chain stole their name from this.

Ghost Story (1981)

Four old rich men, friends since college, get together to tell each other ghost stories. When one of their sons dies mysteriously in a horrible green-screen effect, his brother tries to unravel the mystery. Spoiler alert: ghosts are involved.

This film is famous for bringing together four stars of classic Hollywood in what was the final film appearance of three of them. Fred Astaire was a Hollywood legend who revived the musical genre in the 1930’s, Melvyn Douglas has a huge and diverse body of work, John Houseman was famous for being John Houseman, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, was famous for being the son of Douglas Fairbanks.

Legend more to my liking Patricia Neal had a supporting role. Old friends will remember her from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She didn’t appear in many feature films but I will see her again. Alice Krige, the Borg Queen from First Contact, plays the spoiler alert role. Over the decades she has appeared in a whole pile of stuff that I’m utterly unfamiliar with.

During the climax, with four minutes left on the film, just before the big reveal, the public library DVD failed. Amazon Prime to the rescue. It was free with membership all along.

Ghost Story is a peculiar film. Every scene is a mystery for the viewer to figure out. Awkward dialog, overt sexuality, oppressive score, oddly expressive lighting, and an overall style that had an early-80’s artsy-trippy feel. I found it somewhat reminiscent of the much worse Cat People (1982). Both were films that would make a little more sense on a second viewing, but neither will get that opportunity. AMRU 2.5.