I’m not really all that keen on Vincente Minnelli — sure, he’s done some good movies, but he’s also done a who lot of duds, I think?
Mrs. Fletcher!
Anyway, I’d forgotten that Minnelli sometimes filmed Italian style even when filming abroad — i.e., recording no sound on the set, but dubbing everything afterwards.
I think I bought this because it was on the Hazel Flagg list, but the list is gone now, so I don’t quite know…
This is indeed exactly like I remember Minnelli’s movies — witty, pretty and like a confectionery cake that’s had a bit too much decoration.
My general side-eyeing of these movies might just be me being a philistine and not enjoying the dubbedness of it all. I’ve got problem with a lot of Italian cinema… Not that it stops me from watching Italian movies or anything.
Ooo mirrors.
The plot and characters of this movie are so old-fashioned that it must have felt like an anachronism even back in 1958.
According to MGM records it earned $1,555,000 in the US and Canada and $1,425,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $355,000.
It is a fun movie — plenty of delightful details. And I like the general silliness of it all. It’s very fluffy and frothy. But it feels oddly static, which perhaps isn’t that odd, since the plot is very, very basic, and you could basically do it in a ten minute short, but instead it’s a (short) full movie. It just needs more — and first and foremost, more jokes. The gags that are here work well, but there’s too few of them.
The Reluctant Debutante. Vincente Minnelli. 1958. ⚃
Leave a Reply