Again no dvd of a great movie! Why? I have been waiting for this dvd for years. I saw this movie at Radio City or the Roxy when I was needless to say younger. I will never forget the wonderful warm feeling I got watching it.
June 11, 2008This is such a humourous movie! Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall and Angela Lansbury show wonderful comic timing, and the quips are hysterical! I've loved this movie for years and wonder why it hasn't been put on DVD yet? Come on, Warner Bros., get to it!
March 4, 2008This is an excellent example of good English humour and should be saved for the world. Please, please, somebody, put it on DVD for posterity and for my enjoyment so I can watc it again and again!
April 12, 2007I think this film has the best comic timing & is one of the funniest films of all time.
Kay Kendall is fabulous.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can we have this film on widescreen DVD ASAP.
March 5, 2007 |  | Funny look at 1950's London high society with Harrison, Kendall, Lansbury and Dee! |  |
I first came across "The Reluctant Debutante" seven years ago while looking for movies to review for my website, and it's been one of my favorite 1950's films ever since. The plot is fairly simply told; a teenage American beauty (Sandra Dee) comes to London to visit her father (Rex Harrison) and stepmother (Kay Kendall). The stepmother gets the brilliant idea of debuting her stepdaughter in London society, prodded in part by an old friend/rival (Angela Lansbury) who's doing the same thing with her daughter. At the first ball they attend, Dee is not having very much fun until she meets a young drummer (John Saxon) whom she takes a real shine to, even though Kendall thinks he's horribly unsuitable (Harrison is rather more sanguine about it - when he's paying attention, that is; he's usually more interested in finding the nearest bar before the crush of other bored fathers can get there!) Chaos, as the old saying has it, ensues.
Contrary to what a previous reviewer said, I think that this was actually Kay Kendall's second-to-last film (I think "Once More With Feeling", costarring Yul Brynner, was actually her last film). In any case, it's one of her finest comic performances - her chemistry with her real-life husband Rex Harrison is dazzling - and she looks gorgeous in the high-fashion 1950's gowns and outfits she sports throughout the film. Harrison himself is at his warmest and most amiable here, and Sandra Dee is as cute as the proverbial button. The recent remake "What A Girl Wants" (which I also recently reviewed) looks pretty lame next to this gem, I must say!
August 13, 2006More reviews at Amazon.com ...
Daily Birthdays
(17 reviews)