The Wedding in Monaco

It is the wedding of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco. I have to assume that this is produced by Monaco and the family. It must have been seen as an advertisement for the little principality. Compared to the British, this is a small affair. It is still plenty lavish and excessive. I don't know how many people actually live in the principality. They say 3000 people showed up to greet the couple. I don't know if that's a big turnout. They could have done better with a backyard BBQ and champagne. All I'm saying is that they could have thrown a carnival for the people rather than having the stuffy upper-crust sit through a ballet.

Wedding in Monaco, The (1956)

** (out of 4)

Promotional short showing the wedding of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco. We get to see how everything was set up, the beautiful ship, the beautiful countryside and various other beautiful things. I was scratching my head throughout this 33-minute documentary because they're trying to throw the spotlight on Kelly and Rainier yet they appear to just be showing how wonderful it is to be rich. Nothing here rings true while watching it and I must say that it almost seemed like people were staging all the action just to make sure it came off looking "perfect" for the camera. The narrator, unknown, is also almost overbearing as he keeps going on and on and on about how great everything thing. I'm sure fans of the beautiful Kelly will want to tune in but sadly she's not in the film enough to really warrant sitting through the entire thing. She's certainly more beautiful than anything else in the pic so the director would have been wise just keeping the camera on her.

Just caught this as part of a TCM tribute to Grace's career. Not much to say about it. There are some beautiful shots of the water, lots of big cars and boats, a rather nice visit to the ballet, and a good look at the outside and inside of the palace. It is all interspersed with some of the most fawning purple prose this side of Jackie Collins, and - all in all - a generously depressed air of decayed monarchy. We are led to believe (by the hard working hagiographer/narrator) that this all really means something, that it is a sunny symbol of the best life has to offer, that it is a manifestation of pure happiness in the form of a quite pretty but slightly gelid American princess. It doesn't ring true for one moment, but the disconnect found there is part of the reason it's bearable at all. Everybody appears to be working far too hard to keep up appearances, and all human vitality appears to have leaked out through the scullery doors. One hopes she was happy, but I read she wasn't particularly. Prince Rainier always seemed like a pill to me.

The title refers to, of course, the April 1956 wedding of US actress Grace Kelly and "Prince" Rainier Grimaldi of Monaco. MGM secured the rights to this mini-documentary; considering the worldwide interest in the marriage, this must have been a coup for the studio. The actual film is banal, blathering fandom. We learn Monaco (then) had 4,000 citizens (called "subjects"). By comparison, social media's "facebook" allows each user to add 5,000 friends. The tiny area is a "Principality" (of France). Everyone toils hard to make their Prince's wedding perfect. Not much attention is given to the real purpose for the Principality of Monaco. It's a place for wealthy European (and others) to sunbathe and deposit money into the local casinos...

The wealth of Monaco's royal family is obvious, and Ms. Kelly's presence as incoming "Princess" certainly pleased the profiteers. In the ensuing years, she was more of a draw there than at movie theaters. Kelly arrives for her wedding on a yacht, appropriately. The young movie star wears a white hat that looks very much like a flying saucer landed on her head. One can only picture Audrey Hepburn or Greta Garbo putting such a thing on their head, with any grace. Fortunately, Kelly's chapeau is short-lived. She looks her best when touring the palace, looking at "royal" portraits. The cameras are politely distant from the remote couple. Mainly, we learn that it's good to be rich because you can have very nice things...

But we knew that.

* The Wedding in Monaco (1956-04) Jean Masson ~ Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier

We live in an age of ballyhoo, build-up, publicity, call it what you will. It's a time when people can be famous for the best and worst reasons, and it is all the same: get yourself known, hit the talk shows, become an influencer on YouTube, cash in and cash out. It's not a new phenomenon. It seems that most people don't care about right or wrong. Therefore, looking at this admiring, fawning half-hour movie about the wedding of Grace Kelly to Prince Ranier looks like simply another example of the random way that the world rewards people.

That freak-show attitude has a good deal to recommend itself to someone trying to understand this movie. It's too polite for modern taste. There are no sex tapes (unless you count Miss Kelly's performance in MOGAMBO), no drunken brother banned from the ceremony because he's a jerk, no estranged father whining to the media about how much he loves his little girl.

It is the absence of these elements that tells us we are dealing with a different society. It's a world that hungers for beauty and a happy ending. We may look at it and sneer, but are we wiser for being cynical?