Invitation to the Wedding

Lightweight romantic comedy, but Sir Ralph Richardson's last film and the only movie featuring BOTH Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson. Plus, Susan Brooks is adorable as the girl. I'm usually unaffected by romantic comedy, but I really enjoyed this film when I caught it late night many years ago on a cable channel. An American college student is invited to his rich English roommate's wedding and of course falls in love with the prospective bride. Cleverly written and well-acted. Amazingly, this movie doesn't appear in any of the film reference books, I've seen and it is doubtless not available on home video...

a stale vanity production that should have stayed on the director/co-writer/producer/composer's shelf. this "comedy" doesn't have anything resembling a laugh in all of 90 minutes. the writing is dismal. the whole thing was apparently concocted as a vehicle for susan brooks, obviously a relative of the director (etc etc), who's sweet looking but a non-actress. gielgud hams it up ridiculously with an incoherent "american" accent, and i'm not sure ralph richardson's drunkenness was "simulated". i watched this film so you don't have to.

The ideal viewing time for this movie is around midnight. Insomniacs could rejoice in sleeping soundly after watching just a few minutes of this awful mess . Utterly tedious in all departments you can almost hear wood creaking as notable actors deliver their lines.

Invitation To The Wedding is the last film of Sir Ralph Richardson who plays a somewhat dotty old bishop who accidentally marries his grand niece to a visiting American who was just standing in for the groom at a wedding rehearsal. It was released two years after Richardson had died and it also features that other classical acting knight, Sir John Gielgud as well.

It was a family joke that Richardson had married a butler to a member of the royal Danish house under similar circumstances. And here the old boy does it again. But apparently Richardson had a sense about these things. Because it turns out that visiting American Paul Nicholas is really falling for bride Susan Brooks and he's got a week to make his case before the real groom Jeremy Clyde returns.

They must do things differently in the United Kingdom because I thought they would have had to have a license first. But that aside the young lovers, allegedly of college age and slightly over are all well into their thirties and even forties. They simply just didn't convince me as young people in love.

John Gielgud was in the film as an Eighties era reverend bring the United Kingdom some of the Billy Graham school of evangelism. I'm not sure what his purpose in the film was other than to be with a valued colleague and friend for a last time. His role was entirely superfluous.

However as a last look at thespian giant Ralph Richardson does deliver a great performance. To bad it had to be in such an ordinary film.