High Society

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This article is about the 1956 film. For other uses, see high society.

High Society
Directed by	Charles Walters
Produced by	Sol C. Siegel
Written by	Philip Barry (play) John Patrick
Starring	Bing Crosby Grace Kelly Frank Sinatra Celeste Holm Louis Armstrong John Lund
Music by	Cole Porter
Cinematography	Paul Vogel
Editing by	Ralph E. Winters
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	July 17 1956
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$2,000,000
IMDb profile

High Society (1956) is musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in VistaVision and Technicolor with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It was directed by Charles Walters and produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by John Patrick, based on the play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry. The cinematography was by Paul Vogel, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Hans Peters and the costume design by Helen Rose.

The film stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm with John Lund, Louis Calhern, Sidney Blackmer, and Margalo Gilmore. Louis Armstrong and his jazz band appear throughout the film. The film and musical were based upon the 1940 classic film The Philadelphia Story. It was also the last film Kelly worked on before she became Princess of Monaco (the film was actually released three months after her marriage to Prince Rainier III of Monaco).

At the time, Sinatra and Holm were over forty and Crosby was fifty-three. Kelly, however, was only twenty-six.

There are also some very interesting issues of class in the movie, as Kittridge, the up-and-coming coal magnate (and fiance to the current mine owner’s daughter), is described as having worked his way up from being a miner, and clearly is flummoxed by the confusing interactions of those born into the upper class, as is Sinatra's journalist character.

Some parts of the film might be considered racy or questionable now, though a recent viewer can place it in the mindset of 1956: Crosby’s character sings a love song to an eleven-year-old girl (his ex-wife’s younger sister who still has quite a crush on him); the father of the bride discusses the attractiveness of his daughter's body (while upbraiding her for having no compassion, as most characters in the movie have already or soon will); and several cases of real and imagined extramarital sex (separated from the movie-going masses--who might not at that time be participating in such exercises--by all characters being part of, or by necessity having to interact with the Newport upper class). When Tracy Lord (played by Kelly) awakens hungover on her wedding day, she doesn’t at first remember anything about her previous night’s drunken carousing, but comes to believe she “made love” with Mike the reporter (played by Sinatra) and discusses it at length with her ex-husband Dexter (played by Crosby). At the time, of course, "making love" was generally understood in a more amorous than sexual sense. Being a romantic comedy, “High Society” plays all of this for laughs while cheering for the real loves to uncover themselves by the end of the last reel.

[edit] Songs

A long playing record of the soundtrack songs was released the same year; see High Society.

More than forty years after the original movie was released, it was adapted for the stage as a Broadway musical with several Porter songs from other sources added to the score. The Broadway production opened on April 27, 1998 at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 144 performances.