THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE
US, 1958, 96 minutes, Colour.
Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, John Saxon, Sandra Dee, Angela Lansbury, Diane Clare.
Directed by Vincente Minnelli.
The Reluctant Debutante is a popular soufflé of a film, based on a popular play by William Douglas Hume. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli, a light relaxation from some of the big-budget musicals that he had directed in those years – he was to win the Oscar for best director in Gigi in this same year, 1958.
The film has a pleasant London setting with Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall (married in real life) welcoming the daughter of the husband from the first marriage. She is played by a very young Sandra Dee – who was playing Tammy at this period. John Saxon plays a drummer to whom she is attracted. However, the English family want to turn the American daughter into a British debutante. There is some comedy business from Angela Lansbury as a cousin.
The film has very witty dialogue, enjoyably put forward by Kay Kendall who had emerged as a popular comedienne in the 1950s (Genevieve, Les Girls). Rex Harrison had just appeared in My Fair Lady on the Broadway stage and was proving adept at this kind of role.
1. Enjoyable comedy? What were its best features, dialogue, situations, characterisation? satire?
2. How successful was the film as a comedy of manners? Of the season manners, contrasting with Americans, the status of the season and the facades, styles, London society and ambitions, dancers, social meetings, mothers? What attitudes towards English manners did the film take?
3. How strong was the film as satire? As a satire on snobbery? Mothers’ ambitions, facades and hypocrisy covering reality? Did the film actually have its cake and eat it with the ending and Jane having her Duke, wealth, manners and society? And her parents vindicated? The satire on mothers, on the fatuous fops and young men?
4. How attractive were Jim and Sheila? How much did the success depend on them? On the charm of Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall? How credible did they make this couple? The sequences of Jim's life and work? His parties, drinking? His wisdom and being on Jane's side? Why did he succumb to Sheila's ambitions? Sheila and her rivalry, jealousy, incessant talk and artificial talk, use of the phone, her snobbery? Her attitudes towards the two Davids? Her reaction at the end but her satisfaction with the results?
5. How American was Jane? How attractive a heroine? The significance of the film's title? Why was she bored? Why did she tall in love with David? The contrast with David Fenner? her commonsense and her romantic attitudes? Romeo and Juliet style?
6. How attractive was David Parkson? Was he too good to be true? The stories told about him? Snubbed because a drummer? His American background? And yet the reality? Was it too good to be true that he was a Count?
7. How entertaining was the satire on Mabel? Angels, Lansbury's styles? The typical ambitious matron? Was David Pennerce stupidity too accentuated in the film? Was he credible? The satire via him?
9. How enjoyable were the situations? Their repetition, the editing, the man announcing the names, the dancers, the farcical comedy?
10. This film was made for laughs and yet it had points behind it. Were these points communicated well via laughter?
