Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Don Taylor, Billie Burke
Release Year: 1950
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Spencer Tracy received an Oscar nomination for his performance in this classic comedy. Stanley T. Banks (Tracy) is a securely middle-class lawyer whose daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) announces that she's going to marry her beau Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). From that point on, everything in Stanley's life is turned upside down. His wife Ellie (Joan Bennett) wants Kay to have the kind of formal wedding that she and Stanley never had, and between meeting his soon-to-be in-laws, the socially prominent Herbert and Doris Dunstan (Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke), his man-to-man talk with the groom, hosting the engagement party, financing the increasingly lavish wedding, and wondering if Kay and Buckley will resolve their differences before arriving at the altar, Stanley barely has time to deal with his own considerable anxieties about his advancing age and how his "little girl" became a grown woman. Director Vincente Minnelli reunited with the principal cast a year later for a sequel, Father's Little Dividend; and the movie was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Father of the Bride is a well-made light comedy, enhanced by a radiant performance from Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy at his subtle, comic best. The film encapsulates the self-image of the United States in 1950, depicting a traditional two-parent family's passing along the fundamental ritual of marriage. As such, it effectively defines what is sometimes referred to as a "family values" film, never mind that the United States in the 1950s may hardly have been this homogenized and wholesome. If not as opulent as MGM films of the Irving Thalberg era, Father of the Bride nonetheless represents the type of high-quality studio film often produced in the post-WWII era. It was a huge financial success, and it is sometimes cited as evidence that the reputation of director Vincente Minnelli has come to center too much on his musicals and not enough on his broader work, such as this comedy. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Father of the Bride had a sequel the following year, called Father's Little Dividend, in which Taylor's character has a baby.
Father of the Bride was also made into a television series which aired on CBS during the 1961-62 season. The cast included Leon Ames (Stan), Ruth Warrick (Ellie), and Myrna Fahey (Kay).
A remakeof the same name starring Steve Martin and Diane Keaton was released in 1991. It had a numeraled sequel, Father of the Bride Part II, in 1995, also starring Martin and Keaton. Just like the original's sequel, the daughter has her first child. In the latter production, the mother of the bride has a child as well, her third.
There is also a three act comedy Father of the Bride play by Caroline Francke based on the novel.
