Once More, with Feeling! ** (1960, Yul Brynner, Kay Kendall, Gregory Ratoff, Geoffrey Toone, Maxwell Shaw, Mervyn Johns) – Classic Movie Review 4513

Director Stanley Donen’s 1960 British comedy proved Kay Kendall’s last film, made while, unknown to her, she was suffering from terminal leukaemia, and it is a huge tribute to her that it remains attractive solely for her witty performance.

Kendall plays Dolly Fabian, the bored wife of temperamental genius music conductor Victor Fabian (Yul Brynner), who finds him auditioning a sultry young pianist and decides to leave him for physicist Dr Richard Hilliard (Geoffrey Toone). But first they have to get married in order to get divorced so that there is no public scandal. Then, when his career starts going downhill, Victor tries to win back the wife he has scorned.

The situation and story from Harry Kurnitz’s Broadway play haven’t a breath of reality or fresh air, but the script has some reasonable gags, with Kurnitz writing his own screenplay. The Brynner character and the stars’ shouting matches are just unpleasant, leaving Kendall’s charm and Gregory Ratoff’s amusing performance as Brynner’s agent Maxwell Archer as the main oases in the arid desert of the movie.

Also in the movie are Maxwell Shaw, Mervyn Johns, Martin Benson, Harry Lockart, Shirley Anne Field, Grace Newcombe, C S Stuart, Colin Drake, Andrew Faulds, C E Joy and Barbara Hall.

It has some classy names attached to try to import a veneer of class. Music by Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven,and Richard Wagner is arranged by Muir Mathieson. The cinematography is by Georges Périnal and the costume design is by Givenchy.

The play opened on Broadway on 21 October 1958 at the National Theatre, was directed by George Axelrod and starred Joseph Cotten, Arlene Francis and Walter Matthau, running for 263 performances.

Tragically, Kendall died at the age of only 32 on 6 September 1959 before the film’s release. She made 27 films, most of them merely playing bit parts in her first 10 years of filming before she made Genevieve (1953), which turned her into a star.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4513

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Kay Kendall’s grave in the churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead Church, Hampstead, London.