Grace Kelly imitating Katherine Hepburn

Your response got me thinking. Seasoned performers do things that are seamless in the final product. A good example is Jimmy Stewart in "Anatomy of a Murder".

I read the shooting script while watching "Anatomy of a Murder" last year--interesting variations. In particular, Jimmy Stewart changed almost all of his lines to fit the "Jimmy Stewart Persona". Not just the pauses and the stuttering, but the actual words. AND he changed them in a good way, making the story stronger with "himself" as the main character. It was a wonderful experience to see/read this film.

Extrapolating that idea across performances in "High Society"--Bing's screen personality was a long and winding, but well defined, road. Sinatra played his radio personality. Celeste Holm, well she's Celeste Holm, a complete and utter pro capable of any interpretation required. Other roles I'll ignore for the sake of brevity, a battle I seem to be losing.

So the lack of polish in Grace Kelly's final film performance, which incidentally may have bearing on the matter, becomes interesting in this light. Under Hitch in "To Catch a Thief" and "Rear Window" and Zinnemann in "High Noon" she had very strong direction. The "High Society" director, Charles Walters, started as a dancer and mostly directed musicals, sometimes with temperamental stars. It's possible that was not what she needed.

It's also possible that she couldn't change the script to her version of a "Jimmy Stewart Persona" because her acting experience, mostly TV and a few films, was not that of more experienced actors of similar fame. In this regard, she does seem to read the lines and not make them her own in "High Society".

So your critique is well received, albeit with two exceptions.

First, the script is not the acting. They speak the same words because it's the same story. They sound so similar because in real life they were both privileged, rich, east coast debutantes whose accents happened be geographically separated by New York City. Still, Grace looks and sounds like Grace, and Katherine looks and sounds like Katherine. Leon Redbone sounds like Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas" because "White Chritmas" is a Bing Crosby song. But when you listen closely the interpretations are quite different and unique to their performers even with the same "script".

Second, "High Society" is not unwatchable. Any movie that begins and ends Louis Armstrong just can not possibly be unwatchable! This, of course, should have nothing to do with critiquing a film, but the film starts with Louis Armstrong and ends with Louis Armstrong, and has a Louis Armstrong number in the middle, and there is nothing I can do to change that, which is a good thing.