One Paragraph Movie Review: High Society

Two hundred and twenty-ninth film: High Society, a fancy 1956 film about how much rich people like being shallow and singing harmonies. This is less a film than a vehicle for its absolute megastars to do what they do best. Louis Armstrong plays trumpet and rolls his eyes around. Frank Sinatra is slick and roguish. Grace Kelly dangles off her own cheekbones in impossibly elegant outfits, changing into a new one roughly every half hour. Bing Crosby scoops the low notes out of his chin and the high notes out of his eyebrows. Set over roughly 24 hours before a wedding that definitely shouldn’t happen, the story is just frippery peppered liberally with songs, which would, given my violent distaste for musicals, normally annoy the continuous champagne out of me. But Cole Porter wrote the songs, so it’s a swell party. A swell party where Bing Crosby explains what jazz is to a room full of white people when Louis Armstrong is both available and nearby but look, we’ve come a long way since 1956. Three and a quarter mystery silver wedding gifts out of five.