This is a Fred Astaire movie where I liked the characters and the story but I didn’t like the songs… it didn’t help that the dvd had such a bad audio.
It starts with a performing duo, Tom (Astaire) and Ellen (Jane Powell) Bowen, brother and sister, dancing and singing “every nite at seven” in America, probably the musical piece I liked more in this movie.
I love their relationship, it’s the best thing.
They leave for London, to perform at the royal wedding day. Ellen says goodbye to her two wanna-be-boyfriends who keep fighting each other, and on the boat she meets Lord John Brindale (Peter Lawford) who just said goodbye to his two wanna-be-girlfriends.
He does a tip tap number at the ship’s gym using a metronome and the gym’s things, then they dance together for the ship’s passengers in quite a funny number, because there’s bad weather, the ship moves a lot and they’re all over the place :-p
Once in London, Ellen starts going out with John, while Tom go out with Anne (Sarah Churchill), a girl who auditioned for him as a dancer: she says she’s engaged to a guy living in Chicago, and he’s quite glad because he always said marriage is not for him and this way there is no pressure…
I liked a lot Anne’s theory, that since when she was happy she felt like dancing, maybe she’d always be happy when she’s dancing.. I think that’s rather true :-D
Ellen and John start getting serious, and she sings for him.
At the premiere they perform together “every night at seven”, but a different piece: they are the lead, a couple, and she has a lovely sort of “Grease” look with a black wig.
She sings for John again, now that they are in love.
Tom keeps saying that he’s not the “settling down type” but he keeps thinking about Anne, and he dances and sings to her picture - dancing all over the room, on the walls, on the ceiling…
Tom asks around and is very glad to learn that Anne’s American guy got married a few months back.
There’s a colourful musical number “I left my hat in Haiti”, then Tom tells Anne about her guy and she’s happy to hear that because now she doesn’t need to feel guilty anymore, about her being in love with Tom and Tom being in love with her… which he has to admit it’s true. Still, he tells her that he’s not the marrying type.
Ellen tells him that John wants to marry her, and he tells her that Anne wants him to marry her… but they talk about it and say that it would be a bad idea, they’d have to break up their dancing duo and change their lives completely… it was 1951, you know.
People on the street, one at a time that is, sing “what a lovely day for a wedding”.
On the royal wedding day, while everyone looks at the royal carriage, they tell each other that they want to get married, and have their friend Edgar arrange for that that same afternoon.
It was a funny bit that Keenan Wynn was playing twins brothers, one living in America and the other one in London, who had not only different accents but also some difficulty in understanding each other :-D
They find John and Anne and the four of them get married together that same day. The end.
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