Father of the Bride [VHS]

Father of the Bride [VHS]
by Vincente Minnelli

Father of the Bride [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Billie Burke, Don Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Spencer Tracy
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cinematographer: John Alton
Editor: Ferris Webster
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Writer: Albert Hackett
Writer: Edward Streeter
Writer: Frances Goodrich
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC, Original recording reissued
Running Time: 92 minutes
Release Date: 2001-07-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video

VHS Movie Reviews of Father of the Bride [VHS]

Movie Review: One of the Best Movies Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars

I first saw this movie when I was a little girl and I never tire of watching it!! I wore out my VHS copy so I bought the DVD so I can continue watching this movie at least twice a year!!

Movie Review: FATHER OF THE BRIDE
Summary: 5 Stars

THIS WAS A GREAT MOVIE AND IN GREAT CONDITION. AS ALWAYS ARRIVED ON TIME. REALLY APPRECIATE IT AND WILL CONTINUE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON.
THANK YOU.

Movie Review: Love this movie!
Summary: 5 Stars

I love that I can find the older movies here at Amazon. I have bought several from different sellers and all have been great! I just love Spenser Tracy and this old b&w is one of my FAV's

Movie Review: A Marriage Made In Hollywood
Summary: 4 Stars

At some point since the dawning of the age of home videos, we all must have experienced what you might call "filmus interruptus." Movies, almost by definition, were meant to be watched from start to finish, over a span of about two hours (with plenty of exceptions). They were never designed to be "put down" like a book or viewed episodically, like a TV series.

But in our busy and eminently interruptible daily lives, it's not uncommon to view a single movie over the course of two or three sittings. And it's sometimes surprising how different a take you wind up having on the same film after as little as a twenty-four layover.

Something like that happened to me recently when I started watching Vincente Minnelli's original FATHER OF THE BRIDE. I was sleepy when I started to watch the film on a Friday evening and never expected to be able to watch it to the end. Watching the first hour or so, I found it as witty and charming as I'd expected. Like Minnelli's classic musical MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, it was a gently mocking valentine to American family life--with human foibles not merely tolerated but actually embraced. FATHER OF THE BRIDE, in fact, could be viewed as a kind of 1950s update on the earlier film's major themes: the durability and value of hearth and home over all else. Fathers might see themselves as benign despots, but clever wives and daughters always knew how to wrap the "head of the household" around their little fingers. Social conventions and rituals, especially those surrounding courtship, might be portrayed as somewhat silly, but ultimately harmless. Or maybe even essential--they just may be the glue that holds society together after all.

That this movie's themes reflect (and reinforce) Post-War all-American values is no surprise. One can watch this film with a bit of nostalgia for an era in which a father's biggest worry on learning of his daughter's impending marriage is whether or not the girl's fianc? will ever be able to "feed her." (And please, no Joan Rivers type jokes about that being a legit concern, given that the daughter in question was played by Liz Taylor).

We have indeed come a long way since then. Almost sixty years on, middle class marriage is a whole `nother institution, more the merger of two career paths than the joining of "man and wife." Not surprisingly, a lot of people miss those "good old days."

But the dark side of 1950s suburban life and love has also been successfully portrayed by filmmakers with a less benign vision and a more critical eye. And it just so happened that I between watching "part 1" and "part 2" of FATHER, I caught (well, re-watched, actually) Todd Haynes' devastating take on a similar theme (and--significantly--also set in the 1950s),the powerhouse melodrama FAR FROM PARADISE, which with its themes of racial tension and sexual conflict laid bare the underside of 1950s conventionality.

When I went home and innocently starting up FATHER OF THE BRIDE again, I found I almost couldn't bear watching it. A feeling of claustrophobia suddenly crept in that was as surprising as it was discomfiting. Perhaps it had something to do with my picking up the film with Spencer Tracy's genuinely disturbing dream sequence (a hallmark of nearly every Vincente Minnelli film, I'm told). Problem was, Tracy's Stanley Banks character wakes up from the dream to find himself psychically renewed and quite prepared now to deal with the minor hassles and frustrations of the actual wedding. In my newly skeptical frame of mind, I wasn't feeling so tolerant: suddenly, it all seemed like a big lie. This is not how people really live their lives--and never was.

Flash forward yet another twenty four hours later, and I find I'm feeling much more charitable towards the film. Yes, there were at least two sides to the 1950s, and, yes, I've known that for years. It doesn't make FATHER OF THE BRIDE any the less witty or warm. Was the world more innocent then? Or was it striving to be more innocent than it could ever really be (especially after the horrors of the WWII). Is there more implicit criticism in this bit of escapist fare than first meets the eye? I'm not sure what might have been the filmmakers' intentions (although it certainly is interesting that Minnelli himself was married four times and has been "outed" as gay or bisexual in more than one bio of his most famous partner, Judy Garland). Escapist works implicity suggest that there is something to escape FROM. True enough. But under most circumstances, I probably would have just succumbed to the film's considerable charms. Let's be fair: when it came to escapist fare, no one did it better than Vincente Minnelli.

Movie Review: Tracy's Narration, Liz's Face Highlight This Version
Summary: 4 Stars

For those who like a light comedy diversion, this was pretty good stuff. Spencer Tracy is excellent as a "father of the bride" and he gives us a good idea of what it's like to have a daughter married off. Of course, Hollywood exaggerates a bit, and not everyone's daughter looks like Elizabeth Taylor, but that's what made this fun and, I think, a hit movie.

A re-make was done 40 years later, starring Steve Martin. I watched both versions and would select this one over the re-make. As in most cases, there were more values and family togetherness in the classic-era movies than what Hollywood usually shows today. Nothing against Martin, but it was too difficult trying to top Tracy's performance in here.

This version actually was honored quite a bit, up for a handful of Academy Awards including "Best Picture." I don't remember this movie being THAT good, but everyone's sense of humor is different. Not being a father it was hard for me to relate to the mom and dad's predicaments here. Tracy and Joan Bennett played the parents. However, married friends of mine who saw this movie all loved it.

Obviously, some of this is very dated and a little unrealistic. Any father who still sees his daughter as someone in pigtails and tomboyish when she looks like Taylor ain't paying attention! Then again, maybe all dads see their daughters as little girls, no matter what age.

We see something else employed in this film you don't see anymore: someone talking directly to the camera as Tracy does here. I kind of like that. Daffy Duck did that in cartoons, with hilarious results. So did Groucho Mark. It made us, the audience, feel we were involved with wedding, too.

All in all, still a good film which holds up reasonably well.

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Summary of Father of the Bride [VHS]

This 1950 Vincente Minnelli classic may show its age here and there, but it's still a far sturdier movie than the 1991 Steve Martin vehicle. Spencer Tracy earned yet another Oscar nomination for his wonderfully well observed portrayal of Stanley Banks, a decent (if occasionally long-winded) fellow who gets caught up and cut up in the rudderless spectacle that is the wedding of his only daughter (Elizabeth Taylor, of course). It's a sage commentary on the class mores of the day--how much does one spend? (Or, more accurately, when does one quit spending?) Does one invite one's work colleagues, even if they don't know the bride? Tracy is simply magnificent, gruffly warm and funny, whether he's getting sloppy drunk and discoursing at length or simply sitting by, silently amazed, as his daughter and her beau make up after a spat. The film inspired a sequel (1951's Father's Little Dividend--try getting that title made nowadays), a remake, and a remake of its sequel, as well as a TV series--all in all, almost as many incarnations as Taylor had weddings. --David Kronke

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