Maryrose et Rosemary

Wedding Rehearsal is an interesting and gloriously dated film of upper class society in Great Britain between the World Wars. It's hard to believe that these twits actually ruled a world wide empire, coming apart at the seams as it was in 1932.

Roland Young a titled Marquis loves the life of a bachelor, but unless he gets married and quick he's going to be cut out of the will and then heaven forfend might have to go to work. So he becomes a matchmaker to the Shropshire twins Wendy Barrie and Joan Gardner to a pair of commoners but with the distinctly British upper crust names of Binkie (John Loder) and Toodles (Maurice Evans).

In the meantime it's commoner Merle Oberon who sets her cap for Young and of course what do you think happens in the end. Not terribly hard to figure out.

To say this is dated is to say milk is white. Back in the day Hitler over in the Germany he took over used to import films like this to show how truly decadent the British had become and what an easy place it would be to knock over. After looking at Wedding Rehearsal you might think so.

This was Alexander Korda's first film and he did love the British aristocracy.

Binkie and Toodles? I mean, really.

... as it lampoons both the working and upper classes and how they see themselves and one another in this British romantic comedy from director Alexander Korda.

The film opens with the presses being held at a major London newspaper for details of an upper class wedding. At a working class flat in London a man arrives home to find his grown daughter reading about the wedding and he is told his dinner is not ready because his wife is at the wedding. He goes into a "workers of the world unite" tirade against the upper classes, but then he hears some tidbit about the wedding and it appears he is just as easily taken up by the story as his daughter and next door neighbor.

That newspaper article I mentioned gets the attention of the dowager Marchioness of Buckminster, who is annoyed that her grandson the Marquis (Roland Young, ), a confirmed bachelor, is once again a best man and not a groom. She demands that he get married or risk being financially cut off. She gives him a list of eligible women of proper breeding from which to choose. At the top of the list are the Roxbury twins (Wendy Barrie and Joan Gardner), but they have their hearts set on "Bimbo" (John Loder) and "Toodles" (Maurice Evans). Young facilitates the marriage of those four, and then sets out to see all of the other women on the list are married to others, too. Young's antics are observed under the scornful eye of his grandmother's secretary (Merle Oberon).

Everybody is just wonderful in this film including George Grossmith as the Earl of Stokeshire and the father of the twins who does a wonderful unintentional impression of the Monopoly Man, and Lady Tree as his sweetly addled-pate wife and mother of the twins. She has a hilarious scene where she is trying to explain the facts of life to the twins before the wedding using the example of prepackaged food. You'd think she'd figure they already know that, as they have an abundance of cats and dogs who have recently given birth which would at least give them the general idea.

I was not charmed by this. I was bored by this.

A rich fellow must find a wife or lose his allowance.

This is a film from 1930, and while there are good films from 1930, this would not be one of them. The acting is odd, the lines are stilted, there are long pauses during which I kept expecting the director to shout "cut!" Comedy depends upon.

Timing.

More than anything else, that is what romantic comedy is, and this amateurish, dated thing is lurching in its timing. Four years later, It Happened One Night was filmed, so either someone figured out how to deliver, direct, and edit snappy dialog in just four years, or they knew before (my suspicion) and this movie is simply inept.

Roland Young ( will be oscar nominated for Topper, but that was still five years away.) is the Marquis of Buckminster. His famiily wants him to get married, but he's been avoiding this condition as long as he can. Love blooms where we least epecct it. Even if his family doesn't like it. Co-stars the big names of the day: John Loder, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon. Pretty light plot. And we didn't need to spend so much time watching what the cats and dogs are doing, but I guess it helps the plot line along. And they worked the changing of the guard into the plot... probably not a lot of americans were familiar with that. Nor were those living away from the palace, so it was an interesting scene at the time. Some rally odd editing cuts and jumps about eight minutes in. But this IS about ninety years old! To introduce some of the scenes, they play the public opinion chanting over and over. Kind of short cut... i guess it saves on script and filming. It's okay. Moves a bit slow. Some slow, subtle humor... we can see that humor is Young's strong card. And a bit risque. England was always less prudish about these topics in films. Directed by hungarian Alexander Korda; had been making movies for YEARS, in austria and england. One interesting connection -- Korda was married to the co-star Oberon from 1939 - 1945.

Roland Young is the Marquis of Buckminster. He enjoys his bachelorhood. He's also dependent on the largess of his aunt -- I imagine he doesn't collect much rent on the palace. She insists he get married, and from a very short list of high-born ladies. Discussing this problem with two of the ladies he's actually friends with, twins Wendy Barrie and Joan Gardner, Young discovers they're engaged to two commoners who lack noble ancestors, and of whom their families heartily disapprove: John Loder and Maurice Evans, who rejoice in the names of "Bimbo" and "Tootles." He figures that if he can get all the eligible young women married, he's safe for another twenty years, and decides to start with these two.

It's an amusing P. G. Wodehouse sort of story, although it lacks the hilarious imbecility of the Master. Young is fine as the diffident, aging youth, and the cast is nicely filled out Merle Oberon as the unrealized object of his affection, George Grossmith, Lady Tree and Diane Napier.