High Society

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This article is about the 1956 film; for the 1998 Broadway musical, please see High Society (musical). For other uses, see high society.

High Society

Directed by	Charles Walters
Produced by	Sol C. Siegel
Written by	Philip Barry (play) John Patrick
Starring	Bing Crosby Grace Kelly Frank Sinatra Celeste Holm Louis Armstrong John Lund
Music by	Cole Porter
Cinematography	Paul Vogel
Editing by	Ralph E. Winters
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	July 17, 1956
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$2,000,000
IMDb profile

High Society is a 1956 musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in VistaVision with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It was directed by Charles Walters and produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by John Patrick, based on the play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry. The cinematography was by Paul Vogel, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Hans Peters and the costume design by Helen Rose.

The film stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm with John Lund, Louis Calhern, Sidney Blackmer and Margalo Gilmore. Louis Armstrong and his jazz band sang the title song. The film and musical were based upon the 1940 classic film The Philadelphia Story. It was also the last film Grace Kelly acted in before she became Princess of Monaco.

At the time, Sinatra and Holm were all over forty and Crosby was fifty-three. Kelly, however, was only twenty-six.

There are also some very interesting issues of class in the movie, as Kittridge, the coal magnate, is shown to have worked his way up from being a miner, and to clearly not understand the confusing workings of the upper class.

SPOILERS:

The film has some fairly racy parts for 1956; Crosby's character sings a love song to an eleven-year-old, the father of the bride discusses the attractiveness of his daughter's body, and several cases of extramarital sex (real and imagined) feature in the plotline. When Tracy awakes on her wedding day, she believes she has had sex with Mike the reporter (as played by Sinatra) and discusses it at length with her ex-husband.

SPOILERS END HERE.

[edit] Songs

"True Love"
"Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"
"Samantha"
"You're Sensational"
"Well, Did You Evah?"
"Little One"
"Now You Has Jazz"
"Mind If I Make Love To You"

A long playing record of the soundtrack songs was released the same year; see High Society.

More than forty years after the original movie was released, it was adapted for the stage as a Broadway musical with several Porter songs from other sources added to the score. The Broadway production opened on April 27, 1998 at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 144 performances.