Maryrose et Rosemary

Korda had gone from Hungary to the US before landing on these shores.In this first film we see the early London Films logo and much of the trademark signs of Kordas films.It is no surprise that this his first British film is concerned with manners of the British aristocracy much the same as his penultimate film as a director "An Ideal Gentleman".The most impressive part of the film though is the beginning where the news of Vesuvius erupting and killing thousands of people is displaced from the front page by news of social happenings with the undercurrent of a chorus.It feels like Korda is digging with sly humour at the aristocracy.This is really a rather amusing film and at 76 minutes was clearly designed to qualify for the quota requirements.

Minor London Films comedy, chiefly interesting now because of the number of British actors it features who later went on to greater things. The plot concerns the Marquis of Buckminster (Roland Young), who must marry or be cut out of a rich relative's will. Instead he sets about marrying off all his friends to the eligible girls on his relative's hit-list in an attempt to save himself from such a ghastly fate. Only as the moon sets on the day of his friends' weddings does he finally find himself smitten...

Not as witty nor as farcical as it pretends to be, Young (later Mr Topper) gives a marvellous performance that makes it sort of worthwhile. Other notables include John Loder, Wendy Barrie (of The Saint, Falcon and Sherlock Holmes films), Joan Gardner (later Mrs Zoltan Korda), Maurice Evans (later Dr Zaius in Planet of the Apes) and a stunning Merle Oberon. Something perhaps for an older generation - or those deeply in love with early cinema - to savour, but an acquired taste for everybody else.

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.

... 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.

Roland Young stars in "Wedding Rehearsal," a 1932 British film with Wendy Barrie, Joan Gardner, and Merle Oberon. Young plays the Marquis of Buckminster who has to get married or get cut out of a will which would enable him to inherit quite a lot of money. Plus, his mother wants grandchildren. She gives him a list of suitable women, and the Marquis manages to get them married off so he doesn't have to marry one of them himself. Then he realizes he's in love with someone who didn't make the list.

Several of these actors went to Hollywood - most notably, Roland Young, Wendy Barrie, and Merle Oberon. Oberon is gorgeous and hardly in the film. Barrie and Gardner play twins Lady Mary Rose and Lady Rose Mary. Gardner was married to Alexander Korda's brother Zoltan until his death in 1961; she eventually retired to raise a family.

This is a charming film, very light, with a sweet ending. It doesn't have a lot of substance, though, and it drags. Still, it has its charms.