Roland Young is the Marquis of Buckminster. He enjoys his bachelorhood. He's also dependent on the largess of his aunt -- I imagine he doesn't collect much rent on the palace. She insists he get married, and from a very short list of high-born ladies. Discussing this problem with two of the ladies he's actually friends with, twins Wendy Barrie and Joan Gardner, Young discovers they're engaged to two commoners who lack noble ancestors, and of whom their families heartily disapprove: John Loder and Maurice Evans, who rejoice in the names of "Bimbo" and "Tootles." He figures that if he can get all the eligible young women married, he's safe for another twenty years, and decides to start with these two.
It's an amusing P. G. Wodehouse sort of story, although it lacks the hilarious imbecility of the Master. Young is fine as the diffident, aging youth, and the cast is nicely filled out Merle Oberon as the unrealized object of his affection, George Grossmith, Lady Tree and Diane Napier.
Wedding Rehearsal
1932
Comedy / Drama / Romance
Wedding Rehearsal
1932
Comedy / Drama / Romance
Plot summary
Reggie, the impish Marquis of Buckminster, has many friends and is happy with his present bachelor lifestyle. But his grandmother demands that he now get married to one of a few suitable women that she names, and have some children. Two of the women are twin sisters who are friends of his from another aristocratic family, so he visits them, and learns that they already have fiancés but commoners, against their family's wishes. If he can help them to marry the men they want, it will also shorten the list of candidates and maybe help him remain single so Reggie does everything he can to help them.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Movie Reviews
Amusing Wodehouse Sort Of Story
Those Shropshire twins
Wedding Rehearsal is an interesting and gloriously dated film of upper class society in Great Britain between the World Wars. It's hard to believe that these twits actually ruled a world wide empire, coming apart at the seams as it was in 1932.
Roland Young a titled Marquis loves the life of a bachelor, but unless he gets married and quick he's going to be cut out of the will and then heaven forfend might have to go to work. So he becomes a matchmaker to the Shropshire twins Wendy Barrie and Joan Gardner to a pair of commoners but with the distinctly British upper crust names of Binkie (John Loder) and Toodles (Maurice Evans).
In the meantime it's commoner Merle Oberon who sets her cap for Young and of course what do you think happens in the end. Not terribly hard to figure out.
To say this is dated is to say milk is white. Back in the day Hitler over in the Germany he took over used to import films like this to show how truly decadent the British had become and what an easy place it would be to knock over. After looking at Wedding Rehearsal you might think so.
This was Alexander Korda's first film and he did love the British aristocracy.
Binkie and Toodles? I mean, really.
Korda's first British film
Korda had gone from Hungary to the US before landing on these shores.In this first film we see the early London Films logo and much of the trademark signs of Kordas films.It is no surprise that this his first British film is concerned with manners of the British aristocracy much the same as his penultimate film as a director "An Ideal Gentleman".The most impressive part of the film though is the beginning where the news of Vesuvius erupting and killing thousands of people is displaced from the front page by news of social happenings with the undercurrent of a chorus.It feels like Korda is digging with sly humour at the aristocracy.This is really a rather amusing film and at 76 minutes was clearly designed to qualify for the quota requirements.