Royal Wedding. Stanley Donen. 1951. 
How odd! This is a Stanley Donen movie starring:
How… have I not seen this before?
Oh:
Royal Wedding is one of several MGM musicals that entered public domain because the studio failed to renew the copyright registration in the 28th year after its publication.
So MGM hasn’t found it worth it to push this movie because basically anybody can release it? My copy came from a box set of public domain movies and is by far the most lavish one there, I think.
But it looks horrible! I think it was probably mastered off of … Actually. I don’t know. It doesn’t really look NTSC. Perhaps it is from a film copy, bit… badly… uncorrected? At least the audio is good. But I really want to watch this in a restored 2K version.
But that doesn’t exist. *sigh* The Tragedy Of Not Being Able To Make Sufficient Amount Of Money Off Of Something strikes again. The US should really have some kind of institute that restores significant movies that are commercially iffy. The Brits and the Frenchies have.
This movie is like totes so delightful. Nothing that matters happens, and everything is just fun. Even the dance routines are more frothy than useful: The bit with Astaire dancing with a coat rack is pure gleeful genius.
Pure perfect escapism.
I should make a more concerted effort to see if there’s any more of these movies I’ve missed.
One thing that’s weird about this movie is how relentlessly white it is (for a musical of its time). I mean, there’s even a bit from Haiti that basically all other movies would have used as “the chance” to drop in some fabulous black dancers, but nope.
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