While coronavirus-isolated, I've been watching a number of old movies that I've never seen before, and I decided to watch this one. On the one hand, "The Reluctant Debutante" is pretty dated, and the emphasis on high society feels like overkill. But I see that Sandra Dee plays the same role here that she played the following year in "A Summer Place": a rich girl feeling disenchanted with her family's haughty lifestyle and falling for a "lesser" man, much to her family's chagrin. It reminded me a bit of "Dirty Dancing". Quite frankly I find Dee's movies more profound than anything in which Doris Day starred (i.e., Sandra Dee's movies had an element of sexuality, while Doris Day was always the eternal virgin).
So, while there was a long way to go before cinema gave audiences something like "Diary of a Mad Housewife", one can sense the younger generation trying to break away from the older generation's mores. "A Summer Place" went so far as to look at how effed up the parents' generation in the '50s was, albeit in a soap opera manner; it was sort of a forerunner to "The Graduate" in that sense.
But most importantly about Sandra Dee, she was more than the cute teeny-bopper that the studios cast her as. In an interview, she said that she figured out that the execs only considered her a piece of property, and early on she had developed anorexia nervosa. San Francisco's Castro Theater held a retrospective of her movies in the 1990s, and she attended as guest of honor; who else but the gay community was going to embrace her?
Overall I do recommend the movie. In addition to finding Sandra Dee hot in some of those gowns, I gotta praise John Saxon's performance. He shows the same flair that he did in "Enter the Dragon"* and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". As for Rex Harrison, he came across as a typical old-school actor, so he didn't really catch my attention. I also wonder what Kay Kendall would've done had she lived longer.
Worth seeing.
*It would've been neat if Sandra Dee had ever co-starred with Bruce Lee. Such a movie would've been the textbook definition of super-awesome.
So, while there was a long way to go before cinema gave audiences something like "Diary of a Mad Housewife", one can sense the younger generation trying to break away from the older generation's mores. "A Summer Place" went so far as to look at how effed up the parents' generation in the '50s was, albeit in a soap opera manner; it was sort of a forerunner to "The Graduate" in that sense.
But most importantly about Sandra Dee, she was more than the cute teeny-bopper that the studios cast her as. In an interview, she said that she figured out that the execs only considered her a piece of property, and early on she had developed anorexia nervosa. San Francisco's Castro Theater held a retrospective of her movies in the 1990s, and she attended as guest of honor; who else but the gay community was going to embrace her?
Overall I do recommend the movie. In addition to finding Sandra Dee hot in some of those gowns, I gotta praise John Saxon's performance. He shows the same flair that he did in "Enter the Dragon"* and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". As for Rex Harrison, he came across as a typical old-school actor, so he didn't really catch my attention. I also wonder what Kay Kendall would've done had she lived longer.
Worth seeing.
*It would've been neat if Sandra Dee had ever co-starred with Bruce Lee. Such a movie would've been the textbook definition of super-awesome.