Le Père de la mariée

Delightful MGM comedy from Hollywood's Golden Age. It's going to be a great wedding if can Dad survive it. But every time he thinks he's paid the last expense another one arrives. Sure, he's a prosperous attorney, still the plans just keep growing and growing, as do his humorous frustrations. But then, who wants to disappoint sweetly loving daughter Kay (Taylor), even if her intended, Buckley (Don Taylor), wants to spend their honeymoon in the sub-Arctic for salmon fishing! Now there's every girl's post- matrimonial dream. Good thing Mom (Bennett) furnishes solid family support as the wedding plans totter along.

All in all, the flick's a Tracy showcase. His brand of grouchy humor is perfect for the beseiged Dad; after all, will his patience give out before his wallet does. It's an 18-year old Taylor as the bouncy ingenue, some distance from her feisty, more mature roles, but awesomely pretty nonetheless. And get a load of that over-whelming crowd stampeding the wedding reception - will Dad survive. Good thing it's the stalwart Tracy. I guess my only reservation is that weird dream sequence that just drops into the middle part, too surreal and off-putting, to combine with the humorous flow. Good thing it soon passes.

Overall, I think the movie captures the spirit of the times when post-war prosperity was overtaking Depression era thrift as Dad struggles to adjust to expanding expectations. So catch up with it if you can. It's Tracy at his gruffly humorous best.

For those who like a light comedy diversion, this was pretty good stuff. Spencer Tracy is excellent as a "father of the bride" and he gives us a good idea of what it's like to have a daughter married off. Of course, Hollywood exaggerates a bit, and not everyone's daughter looks like Elizabeth Taylor, but that's what made this fun and, I think, a hit movie.

It must have been a good story and pretty successful for a re-make to be made 40 years later, starring Steve Martin. I watched both versions and would select this one over the re- make. As in most cases, there were more values and family togetherness in the classic-era movies than what Hollywood usually shows today. Nothing against Martin, but it was too difficult trying to top Tracy's performance in here.

This version actually was honored quite a bit, up for a handful of Academy Awards including "Best Picture." I don't remember this movie being THAT good, but everyone's sense of humor is different. Also, not being a father it was hard for me to relate to the mom and dad's predicaments here. Tracy and Joan Bennett played the parents. However, married friends of mine who saw this movie all loved it.

Obviously, some of this is very dated and a little unrealistic. Any father who still sees his daughter as someone in pigtails and tomboyish when she looks like Taylor ain't paying attention! Then again, maybe all dads see their daughters as little girls, no matter what age.

We see something else employed in this film you don't see anymore: someone talking directly to the camera as Tracy does here. I kind of like that. Daffy Duck did that, with hilarious results. So did Groucho Mark. It made us, the audience, feel we were involved with wedding, too.

All in all, still a good film which holds up reasonably well if you can look at it as a farce, and a comment with weddings - something that will never change!

FATHER OF THE BRIDE tells the tale of how the once perfectly serene Banks household, led by genial would-be patriarch Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy), deals with the trials and tribulations that come with the wedding of the family's sweet daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) to her earnest suitor Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). Pretty much anything that can cause a father's hair to gather even more grey streaks happens in the run-up to this wedding--first, the bills (as indicated in the tagline to the film) start pouring in... then he realises that his wife Ellie (a Joan Bennett almost unrecognisable from her role as Amy March in 1933's LITTLE WOMEN) never got the church wedding she wanted, so he gives in and splashes out for Kay. The guest lists swell beyond his expectations and financial means; the caterer belittles the planned menu *and* the Buckley home; and Kay fights with Buckley and (temporarily, but hair-raisingly) calls off the wedding. In fact, amidst the mess and chaos of the actual wedding itself, the father of the bride doesn't even get to kiss the bride goodbye.

All this might seem mighty familiar to anyone who's seen a 1991 film which, oddly enough, bears the same title, but stars Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and (in a hilarious turn as the effete wedding coordinator) Martin Short instead. The film is, of course, a remake, retaining a great deal of the original 1950 film's dialogue and situations, while updating it for modern times and developing the relationship of the characters further. For example, the two Banks brothers are eliminated for a younger baby brother for Annie (no longer Kay), played by Kieran Culkin. As I recall, the relationship between father and daughter is also better fleshed-out in the remake, as is that between the patriarch and matriarch of the family.

However, even though the 1991 remake is one of the most credible remakes of a classic film ever (I would willingly watch the remake--not something I can say for several other similarly presumptuous films), there are still some areas in which it falls far short of the original. Almost all of these areas have to do with the fact that the remake is lacking its own Spencer Tracy--it is his grasp of the role that makes the original film worth seeing to begin with; otherwise one could just as easily watch the remake and not lose very much in the translation. While Steve Martin does a great job as the title character, Spencer Tracy does a *defining* job. Diane Keaton just about every other scene from Martin (as does Kieran Culkin); Spencer Tracy dominates all the scenes he's in. He plays his role perfectly, with just the right amount of frustration, genuine bemusement, and abiding adoration for his only daughter.

One scene early on in the film captures exactly what Tracy contributes to his role (as he does to all his others): Stanley lies restless in bed, unable to sleep for worrying over Kay's announcement of her intent to marry Buckley. When he wakes Ellie up and starts complaining, watch Tracy as he keeps listing the different things there are to be worried about--he keeps fidgeting on the bed, almost lying back and then snapping upright again when a new horrifying thought enters his mind. The entire scene just rings of truth and you realise just what a great actor Spencer Tracy is, even in slight fare like FATHER OF THE BRIDE.

In the end, although FATHER OF THE BRIDE has a clever script and a generally good supporting cast (Taylor appears beautiful but rather blank most of the time), it is held together by the commanding performance given by Spencer Tracy, and for that reason, becomes a film worth watching. It might also be worth your while to catch the remake, if you haven't already. Both films are sweet and utterly likeable, and a fun way to spend an evening. :)

A middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income lawyer has his domestic tranquillity destroyed when his 20-year-old daughter announces that she is going to get married. Stanley Barnes, nominal head of the Barnes household, finds himself increasingly marginalised as the wedding approaches.

Tracy underplays Stanley and judges his performance beautifully. He is the staid old dinosaur at the centre of the hubbub. Whereas Steve Martin in the 1991 version played the father as a manic plunger into other people's swimming-pools, Tracy can raise a laugh by lying motionless in bed, staring into space.

Stanley's wife Ellie is played by Joan Bennett, and hers is the comedy of manners, manoeuvring through the various social minefields which she encounters. She restrains Stanley from yelling in front of the domestic help, harbours doubts about Kay and Buckley (unlike Diane Keaton's character in the remake) and gets nervous and embarrassed in front of the in-laws. It is touching for us to learn that she regrets not having had a white wedding of her own, and this gives her a credible motivation for the spendfest which follows.

This film is surer of itself than is the remake, at least in part because in 1950 the social demarcations were clearer and more solidly-grounded. The Barnes family lives in a bourgeois community in which the 'rules' are universally understood. There has to be an engagement party, and a formal visit to the in-laws. These procedural steps en route to the wedding are unquestioned. In the 1991 version, the notion of 'being middle class' has expanded and grown nebulous. The in-laws are simply richer, not socially superior. The milestones towards the marriage are fumbled for - no-one is comfortable with the protocol. Even the man-to-man talk feels inappropriate.

Interestingly, Stanley is able to get away with being a garrulous bore. Martin strives for the viewer's sympathy, whereas Tracy is assured enough to let his character have shortcomings. He does not need to swing from ballustrades to get laughs, because he has enough presence and authority simply to be what he is, and to allow the humour to arise out of the situation.

Tracy can, however, mime with the best of them. The slightly-too-short waistcoat is great fun, and his silent reactions to the bust-up and reconciliation are marvellous. The film contains lots of goodies, like the expressionist nightmare or the quiet moment when Tracy is alone with the floral displays, seemingly hemmed-in by the frippery of the wedding. Director Minnelli is a master at ensemble 'babble' scenes, and this film has some good ones.

Verdict - light comedy, supremely well-crafted

When I watch either this version or the Steve Martin version of Father of the Bride, I always think of my poor brother now. He's the father of girls 21 and 19 so he will have to deal with what Spencer Tracy did twice.

This film was one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's big moneymakers at the tail end of Louis B. Mayer's reign. It certainly has a theme, one that we can all identify with. 55 years after Father of the Bride came out, fathers all over the world will be overwhelmed by weddings. It will be so 100 years from now.

Twelve years after he won his second Oscar in Boystown, Spencer Tracy got an Oscar nomination for Stanley Banks, beleaguered and harried father of one of the most beautiful brides ever to grace the screen. It's on his performance, narrated in flashback by him, that the whole film rises or falls. Of course Tracy never let an audience down.

By coincidence the publicity surrounding Elizabeth Taylor's first marriage came as this film was being made and released. Sad that Liz Taylor never settled down to a stable marriage with a loving, faithful husband as Kay Banks did with Buckley Dunstan. But she sure is a bride for all seasons.

Of course the wedding, the planning, the cost, the disruption to the lives of the Banks household is the film. Who of us who dealt with having a wedding didn't have to deal with a snooty caterer? A formal announcement party that Tracy puts on and can't enjoy because he's stuck behind a jerry-built bar in his kitchen? A wedding rehearsal that can't seem to come off? Universal and timeless themes.

Joan Bennett registers well as the patient and loyal mother of the bride who has to deal with both her husband and daughter losing their minds to pre-wedding jitters. Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke and their son, Don Taylor, do just fine as the groom's side. And Leo G. Carroll is the wedding caterer from snob city. Maybe Clifton Webb could have done it better, if MGM could have afforded him, but Carroll is just fine.

My favorite moment in Father of the Bride is in the midst of all the chaos, Tracy looks at the older of Taylor's two brothers, Tom Irish, and tells him with great relief that when he gets married, his only contribution to the wedding will be him. My brother has to go through two daughters before he can say that to my nephew.