High Society (1956)

Directed by Charles Walters (Lili (1953)) with a screenplay by John Patrick (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)) that was based on Philip Barry’s play this Musical remake of Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn‘s last pairing (The Philadelphia Story (1940)) features Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly as the formerly married couple Dexter Haven & Tracy Lord. Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm play reporters Mike Connor & Liz Imbrie the characters that (Oscar winner) James Stewart & Ruth Hussey played in the original while John Lund replaces John Howard as George Kittredge Tracy’s new fiancé. Louis Calhern plays Uncle Willie (Roland Young had previously) and Sidney Blackmer plays Tracy’s father Seth (in lieu of John Halliday); Margalo Gillmore and Lydia Reed replace Mary Nash & Virginia Weidler Tracy’s mother and younger sister respectively. Louis Armstrong plays himself a friend of Dexter’s whose band comes to play in a local contest (Henry Daniell was in the non-musical first film). Cole Porter’s song “True Love” and the Johnny Green-Saul Chaplin (An American in Paris (1951)) Score were Oscar nominated.

Wealthy Dexter (Crosby) is still in love with (& still lives in close proximity to) his ex-wife of two years Tracy (Kelly) and is hoping to disrupt her pending marriage to George (Lund) a duller self-made man who’s put Tracy on a pedestal. Tracy’s younger sister Caroline (Reed; Weidler’s name was Dinah) still loves and prefers Dexter who invites his trumpet playing friend Satchmo to visit to play a song he’d written for her loud enough to be heard next door. Because of her father’s dalliance (e.g. to keep the story from being published) Tracy must allow reporter Mike and photographer Liz (Sinatra & Holm) from “Spy Magazine” to cover her nuptials. Initially she tries to pass her more acceptable Uncle Willie (Calhern) off as her father but Willie’s a womanizer too and he puts the moves on Liz who’s has eyes for her co-worker Mike. When Tracy’s father (Blackmer) puts his daughter in her place calling her intolerant and cold she decides to let off steam by going for a drive with Mike and later getting drunk (with him) the night before her wedding. All this eventually works to Dexter’s and Liz’s advantage.

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