Stanley Donnen

(On Cable TV, March 2020) For fans of classic films, it’s a bit of a generational shock to realize that the Royal Wedding in 1951’s Royal Wedding has to do with Queen Elizabeth II—another piece of evidence about her incredibly long reign. Otherwise, though, I suspect that most viewers will focus on the one thing in the film that hasn’t aged—Fred Astaire’s performance and he tap-dances and sings his way through this movie musical. Astaire was a practised professional at that time and the film sports most of the specific trademarks of his performances—the quirky solo number (this time dancing with a hatrack), the funny duet (as the ship’s deck rolls under them), the innovative special-effects dance number (the film’s most famous sequence, as Astaire dances on the walls and ceiling of the room, filmed from within a rotating set), a sequence coming from a show (with Jane Powell), a big ensemble song-and-dance finale (“I let my hat in Haiti”) and so on—the only notable omission being a romantic dance duet, somewhat explained by how the only dancing partner Astaire has here, Powell, plays his character’s sister. The other thing missing is a big finale: After the ensemble song-and-dance, Royal Wedding still has five minutes filled with stock footage of Elizabeth II’s ceremony and a perfunctory double wedding to wrap things up. In the pantheon of Astaire’s musical comedies, this is solidly middle-tier material even if two of the sequences (the hatrack and revolving-room sequences) are literally anthology pieces in the That’s Entertainment series. Compared to the average movie musical of the period, though, Royal Wedding is still very much worth a watch: Director Stanley Donnen and Astaire are old hands at what they do best here, and if Jane Powell is a bit bland here, she does fill the shoes required of an Astaire screen partner (although, significantly, she’s not featured very much in the dancing). I liked Royal Wedding quite a bit (it helps that Astaire’s caddish persona is toned down slightly, as is his no-means-try-later persistence) but I can definitely think of many better entry points to his filmography.