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| Vincente Minnelli: Father of the Bride (US 1950). Elizabeth Taylor (Kay Banks). |
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| Vincente Minnelli: Father of the Bride (US 1950). Elizabeth Taylor (Kay Banks) viewed by her father in her wedding dress for the first time. Designed by Helen Rose, one of the most legendary wedding dresses of all time. |
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| Vincente Minnelli: Father of the Bride (US 1950): daughter (Elizabeth Taylor) and mother (Joan Bennett). |
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| Vincente Minnelli: Father of the Bride (US 1950): post festum. The daughter has gone on honeymoon. Father (Spencer Tracy) and mother (Joan Bennett). |
Morsiamen isä / Brudens far.
US © 1950 Loew's. PC: Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer Corp. P: Pandro S. Berman.
D: Vincente Minnelli. SC: Frances Goodrich ja Albert Hackett – based on the novel (1949) by Edward Streeter. DP: John Alton. AD: Cedric Gibbons, Leonid Vasian. Set dec: Edwin B. Willis. Cost: Walter Plunkett (men's), Helen Rose (women's). Makeup: Sydney Guilaroff. Dream sequence design: Salvador Dalí. M: Adolph Deutsch. "Wedding March" (the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin) by Richard Wagner. "Wedding March" (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) by Felix Mendelssohn. S: Douglas Shearer, Standish J. Lambert (n.c.). ED: Ferris Webster.
C: Spencer Tracy (Stanley T. Banks), Elizabeth Taylor (Kay Banks), Joan Bennett (Ellie Banks), Don Taylor (Buckley Dunstan), Leo G. Carroll (Mr. Massoula), Moroni Olsen (Herbert Dunstan), Melville Cooper (Mr. Tringle), Taylor Holmes (Warner), Paul Harvey (reverend Galsworthy), Frank Orth (Joe), Rusty Tamblyn / Russ Tamblyn (Tommy Banks), Tom Irish (Ben Banks), Marietta Canty (Delilah).
Helsinki premiere: 12.10.1951 Gloria, distributor: MGM Pictures – telecast 24.9.1967 TV1; 9.2.1992 TV3; 226.1997 YLE TV2 – VET 34043 – K7 – 2480 m / 91 min
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Fashion Film Festival, Wedding Films), 30 March 2017
Father of the Bride was a turning-point for the talents involved.
For Elizabeth Taylor it was one of the first films in which she played an adult role, the most prominent of them, coinciding with her real-life marriage to Conrad Hilton, Jr.
For Spencer Tracy the role of Stanley started a new stage in his career, a switch to patriarchal roles. He no longer played romantic roles with Katharine Hepburn. This film was also Tracy's first comedy without Hepburn since a very long time.
For the Hollywood veteran Joan Bennett this film started a third major stage on her career. She had been a leading lady in film noir. Now she switched effortlessly into a worldly matriarch mode as Ellie.
The cinematographer John Alton had become known as "the prince of darkness" in film noir. The excellent cinematography of Father of the Bride proved that he had range for much more.
For Vincente Minnelli Father of the Bride was his first straight comedy. His forte was musical comedy, but Father of the Bride is a masterpiece of character comedy. The result was so successful that it spawned sequels and remakes, including television series. Things that were new and original in this film became standards of situation and family comedy.
But the original is still superior. The greatness of Father of the Bride is in the fresh, powerful and sensitive way in which Minnelli faces an archetypal situation. The daughter Kay is the dearest one for father Stanley. It is a disaster when she is taken away. It would be a bigger disaster if no one would care about her.
Stanley is the nominal head of the family, but actually his wife Ellie and his daughter Kay pull the strings. Spencer Tracy's humoristic genius is in his talent to project an inner dignity in a story that is fundamentally a devastating chain of big and small humiliations inflicted upon him. "I realized my days were over", he confesses in his first person address to us.
From Kay's viewpoint this is a story of a dream come true, from Stanley's viewpoint a tale of a catastrophe. Minnelli's genius is displayed in the way he is able to combine both viewpoints.
The sense of humour is of a profound kind. On the final night neither father nor daughter can sleep, and they meet in the kitchen. There is a nightmare sequence by Stanley designed by Salvador Dalí.
The emotional charge rises. There is a breathtaking scene when Stanley sees his daughter for the first time in wedding dress (see above). "She looked like a princess in a fairy-tale". In another powerful scene Stanley is newly spellbound by his wife in her full dress. The wedding sequence is absolutely conventional, yet full of touching detail. The emotional curve of the film reaches its climax.
We return to the comedy of humiliation when Stanley is always out of step in the big wedding party at the family home.
Father of the Bride is a production of MGM studio gloss, far from the external realities of life for most. Still like great fairy-tales it has insight in universal truths.
Charmingly photographed by John Alton with a fine sense of the long take in the wedding rehearsal sequence and the long tracking shot in the wedding party sequence. And with immortal shots of the ravishing Elizabeth Taylor as the princess of the family. But also the film noir legacy is on display. Half of the film consists of night scenes with currents of doubt, suspicion, regret, insomnia, and nightmares. Comedy here is a serious matter.
There is also a current of satire in the saga of the wedding preparations. Stanley is prudent with money, and the escalating costs of the wedding and the trousseau are a source of tragicomic reactions. The materialistic side is spoofed in wedding present installation scenes, and in the story of making a list of wedding guests where business connections weigh so much that Kay is on the verge of being marginalized.
A beautiful print of a beautiful film.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:
Tähtimorsiamista kuuluisimpia on Elizabeth Taylor. Vuonna 1950 hän näytteli alttarille astelevaa nuorta naista Vincente Minnellin komediassa Morsiamen isä, nimiroolissa Spencer Tracy häähu-musta ahdistuvana isänä. Helen Rosen suunnittelemasta runsashelmaisesta satiinimorsiuspuvusta tuli monen tosielämän häämekon malli.
Vincente Minnellin komedia Morsiamen isä (Father of the Bride, 1950) perustuu Edward Streeterin romaaniin. Elokuva poikkeaa tavallisesta tarinasta siinä, että se käsittelee isän takaumana kerrotulla tavalla vanhemmuutta ja isän suhtautumista tyttären avioitumiseen. Morsiamen isä Stanley T. Banksin (Spencer Tracy) tytär Katherine (Elizabeth Taylor) on rakastunut Bukleyyn (Don Taylor). Häät odottavat jo ovella. Huomion vie Stanleyn tuskaantuminen menetyksen kokevana isänä, eikä häiden järjestelykään ole ihan pikku homma. Äiti (Joan Bennett) jää taka-alalle.
Morsiamen isä erottuu joukosta siinäkin, että se on yksi niistä Hollywood-elokuvista, joissa on Sal-vador Dalin suunnittelema ikimuistoinen unijakso. Siinä häistä myöhässä oleva Stanley tuntee kuinka oudot katseet seuraavat häntä. Stanley ei tahdo päästä kirkon käytävällä eteenpäin, ja lo-pultakin kirkon lattiakin tuntuu romahtavan. Kun hän vihdoin pääsee alttarille, hän huomaa vaat-teensa repeytyneen riekaleiksi.
Minnellin komedia sai kolme Oscar-ehdokkuutta. Itse asiassa Morsiamen isä oli niin suosittu, että MGM päätti tehdä sille jatko-osan, Minnellin ohjaus Isän pikku osinko (Fathers Little Dividend) il-mestyi vuonna 1951.
– Eri lähteistä Jari Sedergren 30.3.2017
SYNOPSIS FROM THE AFI CATALOG:
Following the wedding of his daughter Kay, Stanley T. Banks, a suburban lawyer, recalls the day, three months earlier, when he first learned of Kay's engagement to Buckley Dunstan: At the family dinner table, Kay's casual announcement that she is in love with Buckley and has accepted his proposal makes Stanley feel uneasy, but he soon comes to realize that his daughter has grown up and the wedding is inevitable. While Ellie, Kay's mother, immediately begins making preparations for the wedding, Stanley lies awake at night, fearing the worst for his daughter. Stanley's misgivings about the marriage eventually make Ellie anxious, and she insists that Kay introduce them to Buckley's parents. Kay calls the tradition "old-fashioned rigamarole," but arranges the meeting nevertheless. Before the introduction, Stanley has a private conversation with Buckley, and is pleased to learn that the young man is the head of a small company and that he is capable of providing a comfortable life for Kay. The Bankses' first meeting with Doris and Herbert, Buckley's parents, gets off to an awkward start, and goes from bad to worse when Stanley drinks too much and falls asleep in the wealthy Dunstans' living room. Following Kay and Buckley's engagement party, Stanley, who misses the entire party because he is in the kitchen mixing drinks, realizes that his plans for a small wedding have been swept aside and he will be expected to pay for an extravagant wedding "with all the trimmings." As costs for the June event spiral out of control, Stanley calculates that he can afford to accommodate no more than one hundred and fifty guests. The task of paring down the guest list proves too difficult, however, and Stanley reluctantly consents to a 250-person reception. The plans for a lavish wedding continue until the day that Buckley tells Kay that he wants to take her on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia for their honeymoon. Kay reacts to the announcement with shock and calls off the wedding, but she and Buckley soon reconcile, and the two families begin their wedding rehearsals. On the day of the wedding, chaos reigns at the Banks home as final preparations are made for the reception. The wedding ceremony brings both joy and sorrow to Stanley, as he realizes that his daughter is now a woman and no longer his child. The following day, Ellie and Stanley survey the mess in their home and concur that the entire affair was a great success.
PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Following the wedding of his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), Stanley T. Banks (Spencer Tracy), a suburban lawyer, recalls the day, three months earlier, when he first learned of Kay's engagement to Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). At the family dinner table, Kay's casual announcement that she is in love with Buckley and has accepted his proposal makes Stanley feel uneasy, but he soon comes to realize that his daughter has grown up and the wedding is inevitable. While Ellie (Joan Bennett), Kay's mother, immediately begins making preparations for the wedding, Stanley lies awake at night, fearing the worst for his daughter.
Stanley's misgivings about the marriage eventually make Ellie anxious, and she insists that Kay introduce them to Buckley's parents. Kay calls the tradition "old-fashioned rigamarole," but arranges the meeting nevertheless. Before the introduction, Stanley has a private conversation with Buckley, and is pleased to learn that the young man is the head of a small company and that he is capable of providing a comfortable life for Kay. The Bankses' first meeting with Doris and Herbert, Buckley's parents, gets off to an awkward start, and goes from bad to worse when Stanley drinks too much and falls asleep in the wealthy Dunstans' living room.
Following Kay and Buckley's engagement party, Stanley, who misses the entire party because he is in the kitchen mixing drinks, realizes that his plans for a small wedding have been swept aside and he will be expected to pay for an extravagant wedding "with all the trimmings." As costs for the June event spiral out of control, Stanley calculates that he can afford to accommodate no more than one hundred and fifty guests. The task of paring down the guest list proves too difficult, however, and Stanley reluctantly consents to a 250-person reception. To save costs, Stanley suggests to Kay that she and Buckley elope. Kay is at first shocked by the suggestion, then reconsiders, supports the idea, and conveys that to her mother. Ellie strongly disapproves of eloping which causes Stanley to express his disapproval too, making it appear the idea was originally Kay's.
The plans for a lavish wedding continue until the day that Buckley tells Kay that he wants to take her on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia for their honeymoon. Kay reacts to the announcement with shock and calls off the wedding, but she and Buckley soon reconcile, and the two families begin their wedding rehearsals. On the day of the wedding, chaos reigns at the Banks home as final preparations are made for the reception. The wedding ceremony brings both joy and sorrow to Stanley, as he realizes that his daughter is now a woman and no longer his child. During the reception, Stanley tries to find Kay so he can kiss the bride but only manages to see her leaving for her honeymoon. Ellie and Stanley survey the mess in their home and concur that the entire affair was a great success. Kay calls and tells her father she loves him and thanks her parents for everything.
C: Spencer Tracy (Stanley T. Banks), Elizabeth Taylor (Kay Banks), Joan Bennett (Ellie Banks), Don Taylor (Buckley Dunstan), Leo G. Carroll (Mr. Massoula), Moroni Olsen (Herbert Dunstan), Melville Cooper (Mr. Tringle), Taylor Holmes (Warner), Paul Harvey (reverend Galsworthy), Frank Orth (Joe), Rusty Tamblyn / Russ Tamblyn (Tommy Banks), Tom Irish (Ben Banks), Marietta Canty (Delilah).
Helsinki premiere: 12.10.1951 Gloria, distributor: MGM Pictures – telecast 24.9.1967 TV1; 9.2.1992 TV3; 226.1997 YLE TV2 – VET 34043 – K7 – 2480 m / 91 min
Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Fashion Film Festival, Wedding Films), 30 March 2017
Father of the Bride was a turning-point for the talents involved.
For Elizabeth Taylor it was one of the first films in which she played an adult role, the most prominent of them, coinciding with her real-life marriage to Conrad Hilton, Jr.
For Spencer Tracy the role of Stanley started a new stage in his career, a switch to patriarchal roles. He no longer played romantic roles with Katharine Hepburn. This film was also Tracy's first comedy without Hepburn since a very long time.
For the Hollywood veteran Joan Bennett this film started a third major stage on her career. She had been a leading lady in film noir. Now she switched effortlessly into a worldly matriarch mode as Ellie.
The cinematographer John Alton had become known as "the prince of darkness" in film noir. The excellent cinematography of Father of the Bride proved that he had range for much more.
For Vincente Minnelli Father of the Bride was his first straight comedy. His forte was musical comedy, but Father of the Bride is a masterpiece of character comedy. The result was so successful that it spawned sequels and remakes, including television series. Things that were new and original in this film became standards of situation and family comedy.
But the original is still superior. The greatness of Father of the Bride is in the fresh, powerful and sensitive way in which Minnelli faces an archetypal situation. The daughter Kay is the dearest one for father Stanley. It is a disaster when she is taken away. It would be a bigger disaster if no one would care about her.
Stanley is the nominal head of the family, but actually his wife Ellie and his daughter Kay pull the strings. Spencer Tracy's humoristic genius is in his talent to project an inner dignity in a story that is fundamentally a devastating chain of big and small humiliations inflicted upon him. "I realized my days were over", he confesses in his first person address to us.
From Kay's viewpoint this is a story of a dream come true, from Stanley's viewpoint a tale of a catastrophe. Minnelli's genius is displayed in the way he is able to combine both viewpoints.
The sense of humour is of a profound kind. On the final night neither father nor daughter can sleep, and they meet in the kitchen. There is a nightmare sequence by Stanley designed by Salvador Dalí.
The emotional charge rises. There is a breathtaking scene when Stanley sees his daughter for the first time in wedding dress (see above). "She looked like a princess in a fairy-tale". In another powerful scene Stanley is newly spellbound by his wife in her full dress. The wedding sequence is absolutely conventional, yet full of touching detail. The emotional curve of the film reaches its climax.
We return to the comedy of humiliation when Stanley is always out of step in the big wedding party at the family home.
Father of the Bride is a production of MGM studio gloss, far from the external realities of life for most. Still like great fairy-tales it has insight in universal truths.
Charmingly photographed by John Alton with a fine sense of the long take in the wedding rehearsal sequence and the long tracking shot in the wedding party sequence. And with immortal shots of the ravishing Elizabeth Taylor as the princess of the family. But also the film noir legacy is on display. Half of the film consists of night scenes with currents of doubt, suspicion, regret, insomnia, and nightmares. Comedy here is a serious matter.
There is also a current of satire in the saga of the wedding preparations. Stanley is prudent with money, and the escalating costs of the wedding and the trousseau are a source of tragicomic reactions. The materialistic side is spoofed in wedding present installation scenes, and in the story of making a list of wedding guests where business connections weigh so much that Kay is on the verge of being marginalized.
A beautiful print of a beautiful film.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: OUR PROGRAM NOTE BY JARI SEDERGREN:
Tähtimorsiamista kuuluisimpia on Elizabeth Taylor. Vuonna 1950 hän näytteli alttarille astelevaa nuorta naista Vincente Minnellin komediassa Morsiamen isä, nimiroolissa Spencer Tracy häähu-musta ahdistuvana isänä. Helen Rosen suunnittelemasta runsashelmaisesta satiinimorsiuspuvusta tuli monen tosielämän häämekon malli.
Vincente Minnellin komedia Morsiamen isä (Father of the Bride, 1950) perustuu Edward Streeterin romaaniin. Elokuva poikkeaa tavallisesta tarinasta siinä, että se käsittelee isän takaumana kerrotulla tavalla vanhemmuutta ja isän suhtautumista tyttären avioitumiseen. Morsiamen isä Stanley T. Banksin (Spencer Tracy) tytär Katherine (Elizabeth Taylor) on rakastunut Bukleyyn (Don Taylor). Häät odottavat jo ovella. Huomion vie Stanleyn tuskaantuminen menetyksen kokevana isänä, eikä häiden järjestelykään ole ihan pikku homma. Äiti (Joan Bennett) jää taka-alalle.
Morsiamen isä erottuu joukosta siinäkin, että se on yksi niistä Hollywood-elokuvista, joissa on Sal-vador Dalin suunnittelema ikimuistoinen unijakso. Siinä häistä myöhässä oleva Stanley tuntee kuinka oudot katseet seuraavat häntä. Stanley ei tahdo päästä kirkon käytävällä eteenpäin, ja lo-pultakin kirkon lattiakin tuntuu romahtavan. Kun hän vihdoin pääsee alttarille, hän huomaa vaat-teensa repeytyneen riekaleiksi.
Minnellin komedia sai kolme Oscar-ehdokkuutta. Itse asiassa Morsiamen isä oli niin suosittu, että MGM päätti tehdä sille jatko-osan, Minnellin ohjaus Isän pikku osinko (Fathers Little Dividend) il-mestyi vuonna 1951.
– Eri lähteistä Jari Sedergren 30.3.2017
SYNOPSIS FROM THE AFI CATALOG:
Following the wedding of his daughter Kay, Stanley T. Banks, a suburban lawyer, recalls the day, three months earlier, when he first learned of Kay's engagement to Buckley Dunstan: At the family dinner table, Kay's casual announcement that she is in love with Buckley and has accepted his proposal makes Stanley feel uneasy, but he soon comes to realize that his daughter has grown up and the wedding is inevitable. While Ellie, Kay's mother, immediately begins making preparations for the wedding, Stanley lies awake at night, fearing the worst for his daughter. Stanley's misgivings about the marriage eventually make Ellie anxious, and she insists that Kay introduce them to Buckley's parents. Kay calls the tradition "old-fashioned rigamarole," but arranges the meeting nevertheless. Before the introduction, Stanley has a private conversation with Buckley, and is pleased to learn that the young man is the head of a small company and that he is capable of providing a comfortable life for Kay. The Bankses' first meeting with Doris and Herbert, Buckley's parents, gets off to an awkward start, and goes from bad to worse when Stanley drinks too much and falls asleep in the wealthy Dunstans' living room. Following Kay and Buckley's engagement party, Stanley, who misses the entire party because he is in the kitchen mixing drinks, realizes that his plans for a small wedding have been swept aside and he will be expected to pay for an extravagant wedding "with all the trimmings." As costs for the June event spiral out of control, Stanley calculates that he can afford to accommodate no more than one hundred and fifty guests. The task of paring down the guest list proves too difficult, however, and Stanley reluctantly consents to a 250-person reception. The plans for a lavish wedding continue until the day that Buckley tells Kay that he wants to take her on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia for their honeymoon. Kay reacts to the announcement with shock and calls off the wedding, but she and Buckley soon reconcile, and the two families begin their wedding rehearsals. On the day of the wedding, chaos reigns at the Banks home as final preparations are made for the reception. The wedding ceremony brings both joy and sorrow to Stanley, as he realizes that his daughter is now a woman and no longer his child. The following day, Ellie and Stanley survey the mess in their home and concur that the entire affair was a great success.
PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Following the wedding of his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), Stanley T. Banks (Spencer Tracy), a suburban lawyer, recalls the day, three months earlier, when he first learned of Kay's engagement to Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). At the family dinner table, Kay's casual announcement that she is in love with Buckley and has accepted his proposal makes Stanley feel uneasy, but he soon comes to realize that his daughter has grown up and the wedding is inevitable. While Ellie (Joan Bennett), Kay's mother, immediately begins making preparations for the wedding, Stanley lies awake at night, fearing the worst for his daughter.
Stanley's misgivings about the marriage eventually make Ellie anxious, and she insists that Kay introduce them to Buckley's parents. Kay calls the tradition "old-fashioned rigamarole," but arranges the meeting nevertheless. Before the introduction, Stanley has a private conversation with Buckley, and is pleased to learn that the young man is the head of a small company and that he is capable of providing a comfortable life for Kay. The Bankses' first meeting with Doris and Herbert, Buckley's parents, gets off to an awkward start, and goes from bad to worse when Stanley drinks too much and falls asleep in the wealthy Dunstans' living room.
Following Kay and Buckley's engagement party, Stanley, who misses the entire party because he is in the kitchen mixing drinks, realizes that his plans for a small wedding have been swept aside and he will be expected to pay for an extravagant wedding "with all the trimmings." As costs for the June event spiral out of control, Stanley calculates that he can afford to accommodate no more than one hundred and fifty guests. The task of paring down the guest list proves too difficult, however, and Stanley reluctantly consents to a 250-person reception. To save costs, Stanley suggests to Kay that she and Buckley elope. Kay is at first shocked by the suggestion, then reconsiders, supports the idea, and conveys that to her mother. Ellie strongly disapproves of eloping which causes Stanley to express his disapproval too, making it appear the idea was originally Kay's.
The plans for a lavish wedding continue until the day that Buckley tells Kay that he wants to take her on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia for their honeymoon. Kay reacts to the announcement with shock and calls off the wedding, but she and Buckley soon reconcile, and the two families begin their wedding rehearsals. On the day of the wedding, chaos reigns at the Banks home as final preparations are made for the reception. The wedding ceremony brings both joy and sorrow to Stanley, as he realizes that his daughter is now a woman and no longer his child. During the reception, Stanley tries to find Kay so he can kiss the bride but only manages to see her leaving for her honeymoon. Ellie and Stanley survey the mess in their home and concur that the entire affair was a great success. Kay calls and tells her father she loves him and thanks her parents for everything.
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