Starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell
ROYAL WEDDING
1951
PLOT:
Tom and Ellen Bowen are a brother and sister dance act whose show, 'Every Night at Seven', is a Broadway success. They are persuaded to take the show to London, capitalizing on an imminent royal wedding. They travel by ship where Ellen meets and becomes romantically attached to impoverished but well-connected Lord John Brindale. This causes her to miss a rehearsal. Tom (Astaire) uses the time to dance with a hat rack and gym equipment. Later Tom and Ellen attempt a graceful dance number as the ship rolls. Whilst casting the show in London, Tom falls in love with a newly engaged dancer, Anne Ashmond. Tom assists Anne to reconcile her estranged parents and also asks his agent to locate Anne's supposed fiancé in Chicago – only to discover that he's married. There is much indecision by the siblings about their new romantic partners even though they are in-the-clouds...
The story is loosely based on the real-life partnership of Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele Astaire. In real life, Adele Astaire married Lord Charles Cavendish, son of the Duke of Devonshire, just as Jane Powell, playing Fred's sister, marries an English Lord at the end of this film. Adele never appeared onscreen with her brother Fred. This was also the only time in his career that one of Fred Astaire's screen characters ever had a sister.
In one of his best-known solos, Astaire dances on the walls and ceilings of his room
because he has fallen in love. The number is said to have been the inspiration behind Lionel Richie's dance classic "Dancing on the Ceiling".
The waltz "Open Your Eyes" is sung by Powell at the beginning of a romantic routine danced by Powell and Astaire in front of an audience in the ballroom of a transatlantic liner. However, soon, a storm rocks the ship and the duet is transformed into a comic routine with the dancers sliding about to the ship's motions. This number is based on a real-life incident which happened to Fred and Adele Astaire as they travelled by ship to London in 1923.
The film was retitled "Wedding Bells" in the UK so as not to make it seem to be a
documentary of the recent Royal Wedding of Princess Elizabeth (later to become Queen Elizabeth II), in 1947.
CAST:
Fred Astaire ... Tom Bowen
Jane Powell ... Ellen Bowen
Peter Lawford ... Lord John Brindale
Sarah Churchill ... Anne Ashmond
Keenan Wynn ... Irving Klinger / Edgar Klinger
Albert Sharpe ... James Ashmond
DIRECTOR - Stanley Donen
RUNNING TIME: 93 MINUTES
All contents of the DVD's for sale is underlying material within the Public Domain and is in accordance with eBay policies regarding such material. This means the work has entered the Public Domain because either the copyright was not applied to the work or the copyright has expired.
This includes ALL works published before 1923 AND under certain conditions, works published up to 1978.
