Something for Everyone [Black Flowers for the Bride] **** (1970, Angela Lansbury, Michael York, Anthony Higgins) – Classic Movie Review 8834

Director Harold Prince’s 1970 Something for Everyone [Black Flowers for the Bride] is an insidiously entertaining, mischievous black comedy with Michael York perfectly cast as Konrad Ludwig, the charming, handsome young trickster who cons his way into the affections of every member of widowed Austrian countess Herthe von Ornstein (Angela Lansbury)’s household.

A witty, sophisticated script based on Harry Kressing’s novel The Cook delights and ingratiates. There are sparkling performances all round, particularly from a vivacious Lansbury. Everybody communicates a sense of enormous fun and divine decadence.

It is legendary theatre director Prince’s movie début and he makes a posh job of it, shooting in gorgeous Bavarian and Austrian scenery. The film is set in Austria but the castle is nevertheless located in Germany – the Neuschwanstein castle in southwest Bavaria, Germany. Anthony Higgins, who plays Helmuth Von Ornstein, was then billed as Anthony Corlan.

Also in the cast are Heidelinde Weis, Jane Carr, Eva-Marie Meineke, John Gill, Klaus Havenstein, Walter Janssen, Erland Erlandsen, Hans Pössenbacher and Hilde Weissner.

The screenplay is by Hugh Wheeler, based on the novel The Cook by Harry Kressing, telling a story that bears a resemblance to Theorem.

RIP Harold Prince, the Broadway icon who produced or directed some of the 20th century’s most famous musicals on stage – West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Damn Yankees, Cabaret, Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. He died on 31 July 2019, aged 91. He directed only two films, Something for Everyone and A Little Night Music.

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE died in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles on 11 October 2022, aged 96.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8834

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