Classic Films in Focus: THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958)

What happens when a modern American girl enters the London debutante season? That's the question posed by The Reluctant Debutante (1958), a romantic comedy from director Vincente Minnelli with more than a few outdated notions hiding under the hem of its ballgown. Set during the final year of the old debutante season, which was ended by Queen Elizabeth the same year the film appeared, this is a story about clashing generations and cultures that is oddly conflict averse, even to the point of giving sexual assault a pass as more of a nuisance than an actual problem. Redeeming its flaws are charming performances from the leads, with real-life couple Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall getting top billing but plucky Sandra Dee bringing plenty of youthful enthusiasm to the otherwise dull debutante scene. 

Dee fills the title role as Jane, an American teenager who comes to London to visit her English father, Lord Broadbent (Rex Harrison), and his new wife, Sheila (Kay Kendall). Unfortunately for Jane, Sheila is goaded by her gossipy cousin Mabel (Angela Lansbury) into launching Jane into the debutante season, partly because Sheila never got to be a debutante herself due to World War II. Jane finds the English boys a bore, especially the tiresome David Fenner (Peter Myers), whom Sheila wants Jane to steal from Mabel's daughter Clarissa (Diane Clare) and marry. Instead Jane falls for fellow American and professional drummer David Parkson (John Saxon), a far more attractive contender but not at all what Sheila has in mind.

Much of the humor underpinning the plot revolves around the silliness of the debutante season (though never explicitly addressing its patriarchal treatment of young women as commodities). Jimmy Broadbent is run ragged by the whole affair as his wife whips them from ball to ball in pursuit of  the vicarious social triumph she never had, but the ball scenes run together for the audience as much as they do for the inebriated and sleep-deprived lord. I find it odd that Jane doesn't know anything about debutantes or "coming out" to society, since wealthy Southern families widely practiced this elaborate custom when I was growing up, and here in Huntsville the local symphony guild still indulges in the presentation of well-heeled young ladies as part of its annual events. Jane's ignorance gives the movie an excuse for the exposition, but it hardly seems necessary. Even more troublesome is the cavalier attitude toward David Fenner's attempts to force himself on Jane; it turns out that he's a habitual offender, too, only nobody seems to care because he's exactly the sort of privileged young male who gets away with awful behavior. I'd like the movie better if the ending involved some comeuppance for this repulsive character.

The thin, dated nature of the plot keeps The Reluctant Debutante in the minor leagues of classic movies, but the cast makes it worth watching in spite of its flaws. Harrison and Kendall, who had recently married in real life, have a lovely chemistry together, which the viewer experiences as bittersweet after learning that Kendall would be dead of leukemia a year later, and that Harrison knew she was dying but kept the truth from her. Kendall's Sheila has so much energy and zest for life that she's an irresistible force of nature; Jimmy and Jane never have a chance of withstanding her, and all they can do is go along while trying to nudge her into changing course. Sandra Dee, still at the very start of her film career, has ample sweetness and charm as Jane, and it's easy to see why audiences fell in love with her, while John Saxon is solid if understated as her love interest. Peter Myers is actually quite funny as David Fenner when he's droning on about traffic routes instead of assaulting young women, but most of his later career was in television rather than film. The role of Mabel is a waste of Angela Lansbury's boundless talent, even though she's perfectly capable of leaning into an unlikable character. 

If The Reluctant Debutante leaves you eager for more of Kay Kendall, try Les Girls (1957) or Once More, with Feeling! (1960), which would be her final completed film before her death in 1959. Rex Harrison would go on to marry three more times and win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in My Fair Lady (1964). Sandra Dee and John Saxon also starred together in The Restless Years (1958) before Dee found fame with Gidget (1959) and Tammy Tell Me True (1961), but Saxon enjoyed the more durable career with nearly 200 roles, many of them in horror films, before his death in 2020 at the age of 83. Vincente Minnelli had won his Best Director Oscar for his previous film, Gigi (1958), which appeared the same year as The Reluctant Debutante, but Father of the Bride (1950) might make for a better double feature of his films.

Classic Films in Focus: THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947)

Long before Ghost (1990) moved audiences with its tale of supernatural romance, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) depicted the bittersweet love affair of a living woman and a spectral man. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz crafts a story short on special effects but bursting with sentimental ambience, including a tender score by Bernard Herrmann and Oscar-nominated cinematography from Charles Lang. Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney give memorable performances as the title characters, while the solid collection of supporting players includes George Sanders, Edna Best, and a very young Natalie Wood.

Tierney stars as young widow Lucy Muir, who defies her husband’s manipulative family by relocating to a remote coastal town with her daughter (Natalie Wood) and housekeeper (Edna Best) in tow. In Gull Cottage Lucy discovers the ghost of the previous owner, a salty sea captain named Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). The two clash at first but eventually develop a deep bond; Gregg, however, cannot give the lonely widow the real companionship of a living man, and the arrival of a persuasive suitor (George Sanders) threatens to take Lucy away to a new life.

In the liminal space between land and sea, the living and the dead can meet and speak, but the film focuses on the romantic possibilities of this threshold rather than the frightening. Gull Cottage reveals itself to be not so much haunted as enchanted, since Daniel Gregg is the most solid looking specter in the history of ghost stories. Rex Harrison conveys his character’s ghostliness through his attitude as a man beyond life, resigned and sad but still capable of deep human feeling. He comes very close to Tierney’s yearning widow but never touches her; the audience experiences this separation as an almost unbearable romantic tension, which we realize torments the characters, as well. This reawakening of passion in Lucy’s heart has dangerous consequences, however, since it leaves her vulnerable to the more corporeal, if morally suspect, charms of George Sanders as the children’s book author, Miles Fairley.

Poignant performances sell the story far better than special effects. At the height of her career, Gene Tierney combines sentimental beauty with substance as Lucy, a heroine who must summon every ounce of her strength to break away from what others want for her in order to live her life on her own terms. Her abominable in-laws, played with relish by Isobel Elsom and Victoria Horne, give Lucy a chance to show her resolve early on, so that we believe in her as a woman unlikely to be deterred by a disagreeable ghost. Rex Harrison is perfectly cast as the gruff captain; known for his philandering and charismatic persona, Harrison has the roguish quality of a roving captain in spades but also reveals a touching sensibility. Natalie Wood gets very little screen time as Lucy’s daughter, Anna, but she’s convincing as a girl who might prefer tales of action and adventure to the treacly stories of “Uncle Neddy.” More significant is the contribution of Edna Best as the loyal housekeeper, Martha, whose solicitous care suggests some frailty about Lucy that is never really discussed. The friendship between Martha and Lucy transcends their professional relationship and helps to ground the picture in some real human warmth, which assures us that Lucy’s life is never as lonely as we might fear, even after Anna grows up and moves away.

Take the time to appreciate Anna Lee in a small but pivotal role as Mrs. Fairley; the hard-working character actress was a regular in John Ford’s ensembles. For more of Gene Tierney, see Heaven Can Wait (1943), Laura (1944), and Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Rex Harrison is best remembered for his roles in My Fair Lady (1964) and Doctor Dolittle (1967), but his other films from the 1940s include Night Train to Munich (1940), Blithe Spirit (1945), and Unfaithfully Yours (1948). George Sanders won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for All About Eve (1950); he also makes notable appearances in Rebecca (1940), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and Ivanhoe (1952). See more of Edna Best in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and catch young Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Joseph L. Mankiewicz won Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), but he also directed Gene Tierney in the 1946 Gothic thriller, Dragonwyck.

Classic Films in Focus: BLITHE SPIRIT (1945)

While Noel Coward's 1941 play remains a community theater favorite, the 1945 film adaptation offers viewers a chance to see the story performed by professionals under the direction the brilliant David Lean, best remembered today for his work on such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). Unlike these sweeping dramas, Blithe Spirit is a comedy set within the domestic sphere, which gives it more in common with Lean's 1954 film, Hobson's Choice. However, the type of comedy depicted in Blithe Spirit is decidedly black, and viewers looking for a gentle fantasy are in for quite for a shock.

Rex Harrison stars as Charles Condomine, a novelist who decides to invite a medium into his home in order to provide material for his work. Charles assumes that the medium will prove a fake, but Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford) turns out to be the real thing, and her seance conjures up the spirit of Charles' dead first wife, Elvira (Kay Hammond). Charles' second wife, Ruth (Constance Cummings), bitterly resents the presence of her predecessor, and the entire household is soon in an uproar due to Elvira's ghostly intrusion.

That certainly sounds like the stuff of comedy, but Blithe Spirit takes a sudden detour into a much darker kind of humor when Elvira attempts to murder Charles and ends up killing Ruth instead. It turns out that Charles would be all too happy to be rid of both of his wives, and the nature of the story becomes uncomfortably misogynistic, with the pestering ghostly wives flying around the household as the liberated Charles makes plans to escape from them once and for all. There is at least some comeuppance in the film's final scene, although Coward allowed his protagonist to make a clean getaway in the original play.

Harrison's performance is elegantly heartless; he's playing a blackguard with a sly comic touch, but his air of narcissism might be too natural to be entirely pleasant to watch. Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford both reprise their roles from the original stage production; of the two, Rutherford is the most fun, a hale, strapping woman of robust middle age, not at all the airy, disembodied type one might expect. Hammond looks great but can be hard to follow; she often throws away her lines so that they fail to have the proper effect on the audience. On the plus side, Lean's camera work with cinematographer Ronald Neame is great fun; they evoke a delightful sense of the movement of unseen beings through the house, with a great many interesting special effects scenes as the invisible ghosts interact with visible objects.

For supernatural fantasies with a gentler tone, try Heaven Can Wait (1943) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), the latter of which also stars Rex Harrison. For something more melodramatic, see Portrait of Jennie (1948). Rex Harrison is best remembered today for starring roles in big productions like Cleopatra (1963), My Fair Lady (1964), and Doctor Doolittle (1967), but if you like his character in Blithe Spirit you will also probably enjoy him in Unfaithfully Yours (1948). Margaret Rutherford went on to play Miss Marple in a number of films in the 1960s, and you'll also find her as the wonderfully dotty Miss Prism in Anthony Asquith's 1952 film adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. Her comic talent is probably the best thing going on in Blithe Spirit, and you'll almost certainly want to see more of her.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.