VINCENTE MINNELLI

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBBB. 

USA, 1950.  Loew’s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, based on the novel by Edward Streeter.  Cinematography by John Alton.  Produced by Pandro S. Berman.  Music by Adolph Deutsch.  Production Design by Cedric Gibbons, Leonid Vasian.  Costume Design by Walter Plunkett, Helen Rose.  Film Editing by Ferris Webster.  Academy Awards 1950.  

Spencer Tracy is the put-upon father whose life is turned upside down when his magnificently beautiful daughter (Elizabeth Taylor) announces that she is getting married. He is immediately thrust into a whirlwind of wedding preparations, mounting bills and one emotional crisis after another. Vincente Minnelli allows the film to have a picture-perfect view of American upper-class life without ever letting it get too cloying, emphasizing instead the quirkiness of his main characters and making them seem much more real than they would be in an Andy Hardy movie. Taylor is at the absolute peak of her loveliness, and Tracy couldn’t be more endearing (their scenes together are especially wonderful).