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#305 - High Society
Charles Walters, 1956
A divorced socialite is planning to remarry a wealthy man, but things are complicated by the appearance of her ex-husband and a journalist tasked with covering the upcoming wedding.
If that plot sounds familiar, it may be because High Society is a Technicolor musical remake of 1940's widely-acclaimed screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story. Those who read my review will know that I had enough problems with it that I didn't exactly show it much love but I still thought it was an alright enough film at the end of the day. At the very least, it had the kind of premise and characters that couldn't exactly be hurt too much by the inclusion of musical numbers. As a result, High Society isn't a grossly inferior remake but there's nothing so great about the numbers of performances that really made me think it ever needed to exist. There is considerable talent on board, of course - Bing Crosby replaces Cary Grant as the interfering ex-husband who manages to bring a whimsical charm to a character who was originally very hard to like, which may or may not serve the film better as a result. Frank Sinatra also brings some charm to the journalist role originally played by James Stewart, while Grace Kelly doesn't exactly make for the best replacement for Katharine Hepburn as the wealthy woman at the centre of the plot.
The fact that this feels like an attempt to sanitise a rather caustic comedy of errors through the introduction of light-hearted musical numbers seems to work and not work in equal measure. The numbers feature not just Crosby and Sinatra but also a jazz band fronted by Louis Armstrong and are passable enough but none of them really stick out in my memory. There's also the fact that they downplay the ex-husband's character flaws in order to make him a character worth rooting for as he tries to win back the woman he loves, which does make the film's ending more tolerable as a result. It looks flashy enough as well, but at the end of the day it is a very disposable musical.
Charles Walters, 1956
A divorced socialite is planning to remarry a wealthy man, but things are complicated by the appearance of her ex-husband and a journalist tasked with covering the upcoming wedding.
If that plot sounds familiar, it may be because High Society is a Technicolor musical remake of 1940's widely-acclaimed screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story. Those who read my review will know that I had enough problems with it that I didn't exactly show it much love but I still thought it was an alright enough film at the end of the day. At the very least, it had the kind of premise and characters that couldn't exactly be hurt too much by the inclusion of musical numbers. As a result, High Society isn't a grossly inferior remake but there's nothing so great about the numbers of performances that really made me think it ever needed to exist. There is considerable talent on board, of course - Bing Crosby replaces Cary Grant as the interfering ex-husband who manages to bring a whimsical charm to a character who was originally very hard to like, which may or may not serve the film better as a result. Frank Sinatra also brings some charm to the journalist role originally played by James Stewart, while Grace Kelly doesn't exactly make for the best replacement for Katharine Hepburn as the wealthy woman at the centre of the plot.
The fact that this feels like an attempt to sanitise a rather caustic comedy of errors through the introduction of light-hearted musical numbers seems to work and not work in equal measure. The numbers feature not just Crosby and Sinatra but also a jazz band fronted by Louis Armstrong and are passable enough but none of them really stick out in my memory. There's also the fact that they downplay the ex-husband's character flaws in order to make him a character worth rooting for as he tries to win back the woman he loves, which does make the film's ending more tolerable as a result. It looks flashy enough as well, but at the end of the day it is a very disposable musical.