| High Society | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| 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 | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | July 17, 1956 |
| Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $6.25 million |
High Society (1956) is a musical film starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra, and made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in VistaVision and Technicolor with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The movie 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. It was the last film appearance of Grace Kelly, before she became Princess consort of Monaco.
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The highly successful jazz musician C.K. Dexter Haven (Bing Crosby) was divorced from wealthy Newport, Rhode Island socialite Tracy Samantha Lord (Grace Kelly), but remains in love with her. She, however, is about to get married to a bland gentleman of good standing, George Kittredge (John Lund).
Spy magazine, in possession of embarrassing information about Tracy's father, sends a reporter (Frank Sinatra) and a photographer (Celeste Holm) to cover the nuptials. Tracy begins an elaborate charade as a private means of revenge, pretending that her Uncle Willy (Louis Calhern) is her father (Sidney Blackmer) and vice versa.
The reporter, Mike Connor, falls in love with Tracy. She must choose between three very different men in a course of self-discovery.
The film stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, John Lund, Louis Calhern, Sidney Blackmer, Margalo Gillmore and Lydia Reed, along with Louis Armstrong as himself. As name-checked by Bing Crosby in the song 'Now You Has Jazz', where each musician takes a small solo, Armstrong's band include: Edmond Hall (clarinet), Trummy Young (trombone), Billy Kyle (piano), Arvell Shaw (bass), and Barrett Deems (drums).
High Society marked the final film role for Grace Kelly before she became Princess of Monaco, released three months after her marriage to Prince Rainier III. Sinatra was 40 and Crosby 53 while playing the love interests of Kelly, who was only 26 during the filming. She was actually the second consideration for the part of Tracy Lord; the original choice, Elizabeth Taylor, was not available.
High Society is the first on-screen pairing of Sinatra and Crosby, two of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s and 1950s. They would work together again in the Sinatra-produced Robin and the 7 Hoods in 1964. This is the second time that Crosby and Kelly acted together, the first being The Country Girl, a film for which Kelly won an Academy Award in March 1955.
The movie is a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940), with Bing Crosby in the Cary Grant role, Grace Kelly replacing Katharine Hepburn, and Frank Sinatra performing James Stewart's part, for which Stewart had won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Producer Sol Siegel paid Porter $250,000 for his first original film score in eight years;[1] it introduced a couple of pop standards, including True Love and You're Sensational. Not only did Sinatra and Crosby collaborate for the first time,[1] but behind the scenes two master orchestrators—Conrad Salinger and Nelson Riddle—melded their distinctive arrangements under the baton of Johnny Green. Armstrong and his band get a couple of standout moments and Kelly makes an impressive singing debut.
High Society soundtrack:
A soundtrack was released the same year and was a major success in both America and Great Britain. It has been said that one of the main reasons star Frank Sinatra was drawn to the film was a mock-tipsy duet with his boyhood idol Bing Crosby on Well, Did You Evah!, a song added at the last minute when it was noted that the two singers didn't have a duet to perform in the film. The title of the song Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? gained new significance a half-century later as the title of a global game show franchise. I Love You, Samantha has also become a jazz favorite for improvisations.
Opening on July 17, 1956, High Society garnered mixed reviews, often being compared as a lesser offering to The Philadelphia Story, a previous adaptation of the same play starring Cary Grant in the Crosby part, Katharine Hepburn in the Grace Kelly role, and James Stewart in an Oscar-winning turn as the drunken reporter played in the remake by Sinatra. Variety noted: "Fortified with a strong Cole Porter score, film is a pleasant romp for cast toppers Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Their impact is almost equally consistent. Although Sinatra has the top pop tune opportunities, the crooner makes his specialties stand up and out on showmanship and delivery, and Kelly impresses as a femme lead." Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described it as "flimsy as a gossip-columnist's word," missing "the snap and the crackle that its un-musical predecessor had."[3] According to Time, in spite of its "Who's Who cast" the film is "simply not top-drawer"; a "good deal of the screenplay seems as dated today as the idle rich...[Kelly] lacks the gawky animal energy that Katharine Hepburn brought to the 1939 play and the 1941 movie, [Crosby] saunters through the part rather sleepily, without much of the old Bing zing[, and] Sinatra plays the reporter like a dead-end kid with a typewriter."[1]
At the North American box office, High Society was a success. It was one of the 10 highest grossing films of 1956, with a gross of $6.25 million.
Writers Guild of America Awards:
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.[5]
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