I'm almost sorry to revive this thread, but rather belatedly I watched that disc last night and had exactly the same thoughts. The short excerpt from Donen's Academy Award appearance was priceless, too.devlinnn wrote:I don't think it was the second gin talkin', but I doubt I'd be the only 'straight' gent here to find Stanley Donen pretty damn sexy and cool chattin' to Mr. Osborne on the Royal Wedding disc. Effortlessly charming, honest and direct, I'd give a million dollars to look this good in my 40s, let alone my 80s.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Royal Wedding", too. Certainly one of Astaire's very best post-WWII films (with the sole exception of "The Band Wagon", but "Wedding" comes close). Donen's direction was so light-weight and visually inventive compared to the rather 'solid' (some might call it 'dull') direction by Walters in films like "Barkeleys of Broadway", "Easter Parade" and indeed "Belle of New York". The wit already shows in the initial 'royal' dance sequence, and I really loved the slow but convincing build-up of Fred's affair with the dancer played by Winston Churchill's daughter. To think that this role was actually intended for Moira Shearer... man... I really would have liked to see HER alongside Fred, but it seems that Fred was somehow afraid that their dancing styles would clash. That's possible, of course, but if I think of Shearer's later, totally non-classical dance scene in "Peeping Tom", I can't help but thinking that the experiment would have been a successful one, and I can't imagine to what heights "Royal Wedding" would have risen with Shearer playing that part. Ah well, it's great anyway...
One thing that irritated me, however, was the sequence with Powell and Lawford taking a stroll through the village, where the image suddenly becomes very dark. If this was meant to be a day-for-night shot, it certainly doesn't work at all, considering the very heavy shadows caused by the midday sunlight (almost as bad as Orlok walking day-for-night through the town in the new "Nosferatu" resto). I don't think it's a flaw of the colour scheme of the transfer, as the rest of the film looks pretty marvellous. But does anyone know more?
