Father of the Bride

I just finished watching the 1950 version of Father of the Bride. I've always been a Steve Martin fan, and quite liked the 1991 version he starred in, so I had to see the original version, see how the most recent one pitted up against it.

Apart from the glaringly obvious changes and updates in style (from the fact that the original movie is in black and white, down to the old-fashioned model of Osterizer we get to see in a scene in the kitchen), there are also other changes that have more to do with politics, something I found to be quite interesting to watch.

To begin with, in the original version, the Banks family has a black maid. This in itself would cause a ruckus nowaday, given the political correctness that is demanded of the media (even if events of more violent nature due to racism occur on a daily basis). Even more interesting was the fact that it is implied that the Dunsts (the groom's family) are of a higher station, not only because of their bigger house, but because they have a white maid. I think I don't even need to say that no maids are to be found in the 1991 version.

In the 1950 version you never see the characters get messy, unruly or dirty. The movie is carried with the glamour that characterized the 50s: mother, daughter, father, beau ... not a hair out of place in their carefully lacquered coifs. The 1991 version shows most characters suffering the ups and downs of a wedding planning down to the dark circles under their eyes.

The 1950 version portrays what I would guess would be a typical 1950 family: father and mother, obviously the mother is a housewife (even though the cleaning and cooking is left to the maid). This is the kind of couple that, when he gets home, she's up and ready in her pumps and pearls to take the suitcase off her tired husband's hands. Both sons have leeway to leave the house whenever they please without so much as the bat of an eyelash, they're both in school, and no one worries about them. It is never clear wether the daughter is going to college (but apparently not, she's just being "kept"), and the father goes into a tizzy as soon as she announces that she's leaving for a date. She's the whole of his worries, to the point of keeping him awake at night. I think the 1991 version made the brother-sister contrast easier to deal with by making the only brother much younger than her. However, they updated the bride character by making her a young career woman who has just come back home from her solo trip to Europe (where she met her beau). Obviously, feminism has had a big hand on how we portray female characters in the media. By the way: mom and dad? Total busy wrecks, but it's cool! They look to be a co-op couple.

The details and small stories around the wedding planning are pretty much timeless, however. Obviously, the price tag has inflated from 1950 to 1951 (pretty much! I mean ... a $400 wedding cake nowadays is a steal!). But problems with the flowers, dresses, boudoir, fittings, bridesmaids, wedding rehearsals and so on will exist as long as weddings exist. However, the 1991 version tinges the situations with more than a little humor, while the 1950 version's humor is more subduded.

One character, the caterer, was taken advantage of and exploded in the latter film, though, and I think this is what made the movie a fine candidate for a sequel. Martin Short in the character of Franck is simply fascinating, very funny, and totally un-PC! Forget the black maid, now, this guy is outrageously gay! And I think most fans of the movie totally loved him. He's the reason Father of the Bride II exists.

There is but one very redeeming point in the 1950 version, one thing that won me over: the night before the wedding, Stanley Banks (the father) has a nightmare. A sequence fit for any 1950s horror movie, it was excellently made, I loved every second of it, and relished the fact that they found a way to fit in something so dreary in a picture that was later remade to glorify one of the scariest moments in a person's life. I wonder why they left it out...

Steve Martin made Stanley Banks his own characteer. The hysteria and the mushy-dad moments are all his, all made in his own particular style. In comparison, Spencer Tracy's Stanley Banks is perfectly ... glum. Sorry ... I'll keep Steve Martin as a dad any day over Mr. Tracy.

But I won't have a wedding.


Although, one can always dream a bit ...