The Reluctant Debutante

'The Reluctant Debutante' had a lot going for it, with talented actors like Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall and Angela Lansbury and a fine director in Vincente Minnelli. Also like comedy and romance and there are fine examples of both individually and both together. Of which 'The Reluctant Debutante' is one of them. It is not without its imperfections. The story is thin which makes some of the middle act sluggish and repetitious. Some of Sandra Dee and John Saxon's lines are clunky and not a patch on the adults' material. John Saxon has his bland and wooden moments and Peter Myers is a bore. With all that being said, a huge amount of 'The Reluctant Debutante' works and incredibly well. Sandra Dee is a pert and charming presence and her chemistry with Saxon has its sweet moments. The adult supporting cast are much more impressive though. Especially Kay Kendall (who died far too young a year later with much more to give), who is exquisite in every sense, comic timing, looks, everything. Rex Harrison delivers a lot of delicious lines with deft ease, with a flair for knowing comic timing and nuance. The film is actually worth seeing for their performances and irresistible chemistry alone. Angela Lansbury makes a thankless role interesting. Minnelli delivers on creating grand spectacle and gorgeous visuals, and paces everything that helps bring believability to the romantic and particularly comedic elements. Scripting here is generally very good, at its best excellent. The comedic elements are delightfully witty and sophisticated and the romantic elements radiate with charm. There is a great deal of energy too. Lush music score too, with some great use of songs, the Cole Porter hits and "The Boy Next Door" are particular bonbons. Visually, 'The Reluctant Debutante' looks wonderful. It's beautifully photographed, with opulently designed sets, gorgeous colours that pop out at you and especially those to die for costumes. Overall, immensely charming and entertaining. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Too TOO AWful for WORDS darling. How DOES anyone care for such positively AWFUL drivel, dear. Seriously this is dreadful. Sandra Dee looks like a child playing dress-up, Rex Harrison spends his time smooching cheeks and getting drunk and Kay Kendall is entirely forgettable. I just don't get it.

My wife and I saw the Reluctant Debutante at the Stanford Theater here in Palo Alto. It was a fantastic environment for a great movie. We weren't sure what to expect although we knew it was a classic. This was a very funny movie! Highly recommended!

Entrancing comedy driven by the captivating team of Rex Harrison and the divine Kay Kendall. Both masters of comic timing they make the slight plot of unexpectedly having to present Sandra Dee, Rex's very American daughter, into British high society highly entertaining. Hard to believe that Kay was dying of leukemia while this was being made and would only complete one more picture before her premature death at 33 the next year. She looks sensational, vibrant and full of life, and gowned and jeweled in an amazing array of stunning fashions. Rex is terrific, he often came across as a pompous ass on screen, which worked perfectly for My Fair Lady but otherwise could be off putting, but here he is bemused and full of wry detachment. The supporting cast is sprinkled with funny performances. Sandra Dee is pert, sweet and amusingly frustrated as the object of Kay's misguided good will and John Saxon is darkly handsome and quite engaging. The two became good friends during the filming of this and remained so for the rest of Sandra's life. He was one of the few people she would see after she became a recluse. Angela Lansbury is delightful as the loquacious flibbertigibbet cousin of Kay reminding those who only know her from Murder, She Wrote that she is an expert comedienne as well. The entire cast is wonderful but it is really Kay Kendall's movie all the way.

This is one of my very favourite movies. It is a lighthearted spoof on English upper-crust society. The cast including Sandra Dee, Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, Angela Lansbury and John Saxon is a very well chosen mix, with other extremely good performances from supporting actors. It's a brilliant Minelli film with wonderful colour, costuming and quick clever humour. It shows us London in the height of the social season in the splendour and snobbery of the debutante era, portrayed superbly throughout with deft one line quips at which Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall are masters. It is good lighthearted entertainment, most probably more a chick flick, but I would recommend it to all. Hopefully it will be re-released.

As others have noted, the plot is pretty slight, but it's a charming film, thanks to the effortless performances of Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, and Angela Lansbury. The adults run away with this movie, rather like Beatrice and Benedick own 'Much Ado About Nothing,' even though Hero and Claudio are really the plot. The mile-a-minute dialogue between the older generation outshines the tame goings-on between Sandra Dee (who is completely adorable) and John Saxon (ditto). The reviewer who called Peter Meyers a Mortimer Snerd look-alike was spot on; he's so hilariously boring! But to return to the exquisite Kay Kendall--her comic timing is superb and so is her dress sense! She looks totally fabulous in this film. It's terribly sad to see it and realize that she had not long to live. Film comedy lost a jewel in her. According to the closing credits of 'What Every Girl Wants', 'The Reluctant Debutante' inspired that lamentable movie. Don't watch that; watch this!

This is a cute movie, made funny by Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall. Both actors are superb in comedy, especially in this comedy. It's hard to believe Ms. Kendall would be gone a year later. According to Mr. Harrison's autobiography, he knew his wife was dying, but she did not know. This movie is a wonderful valentine Rex Harrison gave to his wife, Kay Kendall. A few years earlier, Kay Kendall made a very funny movie, "Simon and Laura" with Peter Finch. Movie is not available on video, so watch for it on television.

I saw this film with my family at Radio City Music Hall in 1958, the year of the film's release and it took the house down. The entire audience burst into applause at the film's conclusion. What simple days those were. Alas, I miss the great days of movies so much I haven't been in a movie theater in 30 years. Thirty years ago people were nice. Not any more. People in movie theaters are just as rude as they are everywhere else. To escape in such a simple delight as this film is all I can do these days aside from my daily solitude which I refer to as ZEN and which occupies most of my time. But occasionally along comes a delightful film like this and I am flooded with happy memories of my youth when everything came up roses. I have such fond memories of Kay Kendall not just in this film but also in Les Girls which was just as marvelous. She was a treasure, taken much too soon.

I guess there's a little bit of "I Love Lucy" in every domestic comedy. How could there not be with such limited material. In this instance, Rex Harrison is married to Kay Kendall. Sandra Dee is Harrison's American daughter by his first wife. Dee visits the couple in London and Kendall decides on a coming out party for her during the season. (Evidently these cotillions or whatever they are have a "season", like grouse, because they all seem to come in a rush.) The problem is that, at one of the parties, Dee meets the darkly handsome young John Saxon and they fall for each other. Saxon is evidently nothing more than a bongo player in the band -- hardly suitable for the daughter of Lord and Lady Broadbent. The story adheres to all the conventional values of the period. By the end, when Dee and Saxon finally have their embrace unfettered by the conditions of social class, he turns out to be the new Duke of Positano. It would hardly do for him to be nothing more than an itinerant drummer. But the film is a success, in that it's usually funny and sometimes funny as hell. (There's a weak spot in the middle, with eavesdroppers falling farcically in and out of the kitchen.) It's from a play but writer Epstein and director Vincente Minelli have effectively opened it up. Your attention is politely directed to the virtually wordless ten-minute montage in which Harrison and Kendall are forced to attend party after party, each indistinguishable from the other. Everyone dashes around in tuxedos and evening gowns, chattering madly, while Harrison -- fiercely bored but still extremely polite -- heads towards the champagne. The parties keep him up until early in the morning and he suffers from daily hangovers and lack of sleep. Harrison is so confused that at one party, instead of Lord and Lady Broadbent, he has himself announced as "Broad and Bently Laidlaw" or something. Americans of a certain class have their coming out parties too, from the planning of which fathers are ordinarily excluded. One such father, asked about his feeling towards cotillions, put his head in his hands and moaned that they were hideous check-signing ceremonies. (That's not in the movie; it's in a documentary.) Dee and Saxon are a little flat, especially John Saxon, although they both look the part. Saxon is a mannequin but Dee at least has her slight shoulders to emphasize her bust, and that fruity voice suggestive of Bayonne. The rest of the cast are superb. Kay Kendall is the elegantly beautiful but dizzy step mother, always anxious, always confused, and with a nose that could serve as a ship's prow. Rex Harrison is superb in this light comedy. He's able to turn a scene with no dialog -- something as simple as Saxon following him into the men's room -- into a ludic gem. The direction and performances would carry this frothy comedy of mix ups even if the sometimes sparkling dialog did not.

I saw this one during its first-run release at the Beverly Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif. The CinemaScope projection there was top-notch, doing full justice to Minnelli's always creative use of the wide screen. Among MGM's A-list ingredients was the casting of Kay Kendall, whose elegance and comic verve made this confection as enjoyable as one could have hoped. How I wish she had lived to make many more screen memories. Her early death was a real loss. This title appears to be available on video only in a VHS version, which no doubt means that it is probably not letterboxed. "There oughta be a law!"