The Reluctant Debutante ***½ (1958, Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Angela Lansbury, Peter Myers, Diane Clare) – Classic Movie Review 4,511

Vincente Minnelli’s funny 1958 film The Reluctant Debutante stars Rex Harrison and his wife Kay Kendall as a couple who decide to launch their reluctant debutante daughter (Sandra Dee) into posh society. It is a delicious soufflé of a film. 

Director Vincente Minnelli’s funny 1958 vehicle for Rex Harrison and his wife Kay Kendall is a delicious soufflé of a film.

Harrison and Kendall star in the 1958 film The Reluctant Debutante as Jimmy and Sheila Broadbent, who arrive from a long stay in the US back in London to offer up their reluctant debutante daughter Jane (Sandra Dee) into posh society. They want her to marry eligible David Fenner (Peter Myers), but Jane fancies American drummer David Parkson (John Saxon), and Sheila’s bitchy pal Mabel Claremont (Angela Lansbury) wants her debutante daughter Clarissa (Diane Clare) to marry David Fenner.

The film is very old fashioned, contrived and unsurprising, with a stagey feel from its obvious theatre roots in the 1955 hit play by William Douglas-Home. Yet it is still a lot of entertaining fun thanks to the witty lines in Douglas-Home and Julius J Epstein’s script and, mostly, to the perfect, poised playing of true professionals at this kind of thing. Even Dee and Saxon are surprisingly sympathetic.

Also in the cast are Charles Cullum, Charles Herbert, Ambrosine Phillpotts and Sheila Raynor.

The Reluctant Debutante runs 95 minutes, is released by MGM, is produced by Pandro S Berman and Kathryn Hereford, the score is by Eddie Warner, the cinematography is by Joseph Ruttenberg, and it is designed by Jean d’Eaubonne.

Kay Kendall, Rex Harrison, John Saxon, and Sandra Dee.

Although it was the 12th most popular movie at the British box office in 1959, and it earned $1,555,000 in north America plus $1,425,000 overseas, MGM lost $355,000 on it.

Though set in London’s debutante season at the last presentation at court in 1958, the film was made in Paris to help Harrison’s tax situation.

It is the second of three movies Sandra Dee and John Saxon made together, after The Restless Years (1958) and followed by Portrait in Black (1960),

Angela Lansbury must have been severely disappointed to be fifth billed after Sandra Dee and John Saxon, and appear so low down on the poster. Dame Angela Lansbury October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022).

Sandra Dee (born Alexandra Zuck; April 23, 1942) died on February 20, 2005 of complications from kidney disease, brought on by lifelong anorexia nervosa.

John Saxon was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York in 1936. He died of complications from pneumonia, on July 25, 2020, aged 83,

Harrison married Kendall in 1957 after they worked together on The Constant Husband (1955). Kendall was not told that she was diagnosed with leukaemia before filming and made only one more movie, Once More With Feeling, before she died on 6 September 1959, aged only 32. Harrison cared for Kendall until her death, telling her she was suffering from an iron deficiency.

It was remade as What a Girl Wants in 2003, with Colin Firth and Amanda Bynes.

The cast are Rex Harrison as Jimmy Broadbent, Kay Kendall as Sheila Broadbent, John Saxon as David Parkson, Sandra Dee as Jane Broadbent, Angela Lansbury as Mabel Claremont, Peter Myers as David Fenner, Diane Clare as Clarissa Claremont, Charles Cullum as English Colonel, Sheila Raynor as Maid, Ambrosine Phillpotts as secretary Miss Grey, and Charles Herbert.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,511

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