THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE: Blu-ray (MGM, 1958) Warner Archive

The joyously nonsensical goings on and foibles of the degenerate rich have often served as amusing fodder for the stage and screen, perhaps never more adroitly than in director, Vincente Minnelli's The Reluctant Debutante (1958) a supremely elegant puff pastry of an English farce. At the start of production, MGM envisioned the movie as a souffle about the hoi poloi, its ‘upper crust’ society romp a la the spark and comedic flavor of Father Of The Bride (1951). Alas, Minnelli was not about to repeat himself, even if the aforementioned picture had been one of the studio’s biggest bell-ringers of the decade. That Minnelli’s vision for The Reluctant Debutante steadily evolved into a winsome drama of the ‘little gem’ class – tricked out in all the finery Jean d'Eaubonne’s art direction could afford, immaculately photographed in Cinemascope by Joseph Ruttenberg - became too recherché for the middle classes, proved both its advantage and its detriment. In America, the picture did only moderate business. Nevertheless, in Europe it acquired a fairly solid following. Based on William Douglas-Home's 1955 smash London play, The Reluctant Debutante crossed the Atlantic, where its rights were almost immediately snatched up by MGM for a cool $150,000 with the understanding, they would incur the costs to produce it on Broadway before translating it into a movie. So far, so good - except the Broadway incarnation was an unqualified disaster, playing only 134 performances and to very tepid reviews. Undaunted, MGM pressed on with the decision to translate it into a movie, signing heavy-hitter, Rex Harrison and his then wife, Kay Kendall to play the esteemed banker, Jimmy Broadbent and his wife, Lady Sheila. Further bolstering the film's pedigree was Joseph L. Ruttenberg, whose lush and lovely visual styling was a distinct asset, and, of course Minnelli, whose keen artistic sense had transformed many an MGM classic into a chic and witty affair. Minnelli shot The Reluctant Debutante in just 7 weeks - a minor marvel, considering the logistical nightmare of assembling cast and crew abroad.

Because of Britain's tax laws, Rex Harrison (a Swiss citizen) could not film in England where the action is set. The production was therefore relocated to France to accommodate the actor. Minnelli would have preferred to shoot everything live as he had done with most of Gigi (1958) eighteen months earlier. Instead he was forced to patch together his visuals from a series of beautifully constructed sets and process plate photography. In hindsight, the results are never terrible. But they do tend to expose the artifice in the exercise. MGM also encouraged Minnelli to diffuse the tart British wit in Homes' original by casting Americans in the supporting cast – a light vulgarity creeping in to appease the Yanks. Hence, Jimmy Broadbent's daughter, Jane (Sandra Dee) became a child from a previous marriage, living abroad in America with her mother, and, to acquire a more broad-minded perspective on dating and boys. The fellow she meets and falls in love with is now David Parkson (Jon Saxon), an Italian-American, currently living in Europe who returns to Italy and becomes a Duke after his favorite uncle has died. Douglas-Homes (with an assist from Julius Epstein) agreed to these minor changes - none really hurting the overall charm of the original play.

Alas, behind the scenes, two great tragedies unfolded. The first dogged Minnelli’s desire to translate The Reluctant Debutante to the screen with even a glimmer of the success the original stagecraft had enjoyed, American audiences, by 1958, having moved away from those hoity-toity ‘dramedies’ – once, a Hollywood main staple. So too, did Homes' flavor, that fizz and frazzle of the intangibly haughty and exclusive sect, in spite of Minnelli’s plush padding, somehow manage to escape bottling, the air of the bon vivant on a cultured lark and a spree, dead in the water before even a single frame was exposed. Despite the picture’s star-drawing cache, and that of Minnelli’s name above the title, The Reluctant Debutante enjoyed a mistakenly superb opening weekend at New York's Radio City - the second highest gross achieved for an MGM picture to play there – before ticket sales steeply fell off, eventually, to come up decidedly short of everyone’s expectations. The greater calamity was more personal than artistic. Kay Kendall had begun the movie while 'recovering from a malady', then assessed as gastroenteritis. Only Harrison and Kendall's doctor knew the truth. The 32-yr.-old actress had inoperable cancer. She would die from it 18-months later, depriving movie audiences of her truly incandescent and one-of-a-kind personality.

The Reluctant Debutante concerns itself with the irony and chaos derived from that gay social ritual of debutante balls in London, England where daughters from wealthy families are paraded in front of young men for the express purpose of landing a husband. Sheila Broadbent is determined Jimmy's American daughter from a previous marriage will partake of the advantages in this 'meat market'. But Jane is a progressive girl with some very progressive ideas. She valiantly endures the rigorous round of cotillions and parties, yet is dispassionate about virtually all the boys she meets. In another corner Sheila's fair-weather friend, Mabel Claremont (Angela Lansbury) is desperately trying to push her own daughter, Clarissa (Diane Clare) into the arms of David Fenner (Peter Myers), a real drip with a penchant for taking advantage of girls after they have been made a wee bit tipsy by him. Something of a wallflower, Clarissa is mad about Fenner. But Sheila is determined he will be Jane's beau. Fenner has no problem with this arrangement. Jane most certainly does. She has already fallen madly in love with bongo-drummer, David Parkson. Now, Mabel inadvertently adds fuel to this fire when she gives Sheila, Parkson's phone number. Mistaking Parkson for Fenner over the telephone, Sheila invites him to dine with the family. Meanwhile Parkson's ailing uncle dies in Italy. He bequeaths his entire estate (more like a small principality) to his favorite nephew. Suspecting Parkson was responsible for a scandalous encounter with a drunken girl one year ago, Sheila does everything she can to split Jane and David up. But the truth is Fenner was the real culprit - not Parkson!

Under anyone else's direction, The Reluctant Debutante would be just another forgettable rom/com of that mid-fifties’ ilk, highly sanitized under the stringency of Hollywood’s self-governing production code, and, about as exciting to digest as pabulum. Mercifully, its frothy dialogue and expert interplay between Kendall and Harrison elevate the movie from mere confection. Minnelli brings an impeccable elegance to bear upon these proceedings. Truly, Minnelli was from another time, moreover, capable of taking the rest of us back to it in a sort of strange and wonderful time warp that belies the vintage in which, generally speaking, his movies were made. One can argue, occasionally, his artist's camera eye goes slightly astray, the Euro-trash bric-a-brac laden on too thick, though always in visually arresting ways. And Minnelli always fills the vast Cinemascope frame with interesting background information – more than filler, and less than noise. He transforms the endless montage of debutante balls into an almost orgasmic exercise for the hopefuls, but, in tandem, a garish nightmare for Jimmy, who frequently soaks himself in champagne cocktails at the bar, just to survive the ordeal. Yet, Minnelli's real gift here is his staging. He knows precisely how to move his actors - and more importantly, his camera – about the scene, maneuvering the audience in and out of the luxurious surroundings in a way that never seems to be manipulated or theatrical at a glance. We traverse the concourse along with the stars, discovering, as they do, the pleasures and pitfalls of this social season in delightful dollops of expertly blended joys and cynicism.

Arguably, the movie’s one sour note is its musical score, accredited to Eddie Warner, but strictly speaking - a patchwork hand-me-down cues from other MGM product. The main title is from Minnelli's light comedy masterpiece, Designing Woman (1957). The background orchestrations span the gamut of stock recordings excised from memorable MGM scores in pictures like Rose Marie, Born to Dance (both in 1936) and, Rosalie (1937). Listening to these instantly identifiable – and very American - pop tunes of their day, especially as background in a decidedly continental programmer, with Minnelli doing his damnedest to infuse the picture with a distinctly British flavor in decidedly French settings, one sincerely wishes Metro had shelled out for a new 'British' sound to accompany these more sharply drawn 'drawing room' witticisms played for our benefit in front of the camera. Perhaps, MGM was merely pinching pennies where it could. After their attempt at the play colossally fizzled on Broadway, they were probably determined to keep costs on the movie to a minimum, affording Minnelli his pleasure to shoot abroad, but otherwise, tightening the purse strings in areas they fervently believed the audience would not notice.

Viewing The Reluctant Debutante today, one is immediately struck by how deceptively light and lovely it appear, at first, to be; the more sobering underlay about a woman’s right to pursue a male of her own choosing, rather than the other way around, decidedly out of step with either the debutante class depicted in the movie, or, the still overriding point of view of the Eisenhower fifties where even American beauties still wore white lace gloves to church, a pill-box hat, and, carried a tiny handbag on their arm. Sandra Dee is problematic casting here. Personally, I have never quite understood her appeal. Dee is on the other side of the rainbow where the moniker of ‘fresh-faced’ is concerned. ‘Antiseptic’ is more like it, with absolutely zero screen sex appeal, making her romantic sparring with John Saxon a real snore. Saxon, it should be pointed out, does not fare all that much better, though his lack of presence is not altogether his doing. First off, the role of drummer-turned-Count is thankless; token testosterone of the ‘dark and handsome’ ilk that Saxon does manage to infuse with a modest hint of danger. But Dee never rises to his level of intrigue, her platinum-haired sophisticate thoroughly lacking the kittenish charisma of, say, a young Grace Kelly – or even Kim Novak – to make any of their scenes crackle with a flint of romantic love. The picture’s salvation thus remains the excellent triumvirate of Rex Harrison’s slightly bored boulevardier, Kay Kendall’s amiable and enterprising wife, and, in a disposable cameo, Angela Lansbury, as the dotty mother-type, eager to inveigle her offspring with any handsome guy, so long as he is rich. Harrison, Kendall and Lansbury are hams of the ‘old trooper’ class – wonderfully seasoned and so thoroughly secure in their material, they bring a whiff of effervescence to this somewhat creaky and caste-driven spectacle without even trying. In the last analysis, and despite its shortcomings, The Reluctant Debutante remains a minor masterpiece from Minnelli’s formidable body of work.

It is wonderful to have The Reluctant Debutante on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. One would sincerely hope its debut will bode will for releasing more vintage Cinemascope product to hi-def in the future, including The Swan (1956) and The Student Prince (1954). The Reluctant Debutante was first released via WAC’s MOD-DVD program, and although advertised then as ‘remastered’ the results were fairly middling at best. So, fans of The Reluctant Debutante will be overjoyed to learn this new Blu-ray has gone back to the drawing board, emerging with a revitalized picture that positively glows and is up to WAC’s usually high standards. Colors are rich and fully saturated. Flesh tones are accurately rendered. The DVD leaned toward an artificial tint of piggy pink. Contrast is excellent, and fine details could scarcely be more fully realized. Occasionally, there is some residual softness around the edges of the frame, but this is likely due to the shortcomings of vintage Cinemascope – not this 1080p mastering effort. The horizontal stretching on the DVD, to have plagued actor's faces with the ‘Cinemascope mumps’ has been corrected here. A few cutaways continue to suffer from strangely elevated grain levels, but again, these appear to be baked into the original elements and are not a flaw in translating the movie to hi-def. Better still, the 6-track stereo, translated to 5.1 DTS herein, sounds marvelous, with frontal positioned dialogue but a considerable sonic spread for the score. As on the original DVD release, the only extra here is a theatrical trailer.  Bottom line: it’s always good to get more Minnelli on Blu-ray. One sincerely hopes WAC is working on giving us Tea and Sympathy (1956), Yolanda and the Thief (1945), The Pirate (1949), Some Came Running (1958), The Clock (1945), Cabin in the Sky (1943) and, Madame Bovary (1949). Bottom line: highly recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

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