A movie review for WORD of High Society, the brilliant Cole Porter musical. Includes some highly tenuous genealogical information, too.

I'll never forget the day I learned I was related to Princess Grace of Monaco. Unluckily, as my mother went on to explain, our link was not to the crowned heads of Europe but through some shared roots in the peasantry of County Mayo. In the time-honoured way, Grace Kelly's branch of the family had emigrated to America and become rich, while mine sailed to Liverpool and grew even poorer. Nevertheless I've kept a benevolent interest in her work. To you, she may be the unattainable Ice Goddess of Hollywood. But for me she'll always be plain old Auntie Gracie.

High Society is not her greatest film but it might be her most enjoyable. A romantic comedy, the story first saw light of night as a Broadway play and became that proverbially sophisticated movie The Philadelphia Story. The 1956 remake lacks the absolute class of its predecessor but, on the other hand, it has the magnificent music of Cole Porter, whose songs make this a contender for the greatest musical ever. Grace Kelly's role as the heiress Tracy Lord had been intended for Elizabeth Taylor, who proved unavailable. It's impossible now to conceive it without her. In real life Grace had just become betrothed to Prince Rainier of Monaco. On film she wore her actual engagement ring - which, in the DVD documentary, her droll co-star Celeste Holm describes as 'a skating rink'.

This time The Philadelphia Story is re-located to the millionaires' playground of Newport, Rhode Island. Its backdrop is the local jazz festival, which permits the inclusion of Louis Armstrong and his band. As the house-guests of a suave songwriter Dexter (Bing Crosby) they provide a swinging commentary on the developing plot: 'The silly chick is gonna marry a square!' Dexter is a wisecracking rascal, whilst his ex-wife Tracy is a frigid snob. Now that Tracy is about to marry the drippy George (John Lund) their estrangement looks complete. Into this situation walk Mike and Liz (Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm), a writer and photographer from a gossipy New York magazine called Spy ('it rhymes with lie').

Scrapes and japes ensue. But they are as nothing to the songs of Cole Porter. There isn't a weak one among them. The best-known are probably Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Holm and Sinatra ogle Rhode Island's opulence: 'Do I want a yacht? Oh, how I do not!') and True Love (Bing serenading Grace on a twilit cruise). That's not to mention the summit meeting of the era's two pre-eminent male vocalists, Crosby and Sinatra's Well Did You Evah?: I used to think its lyric was strangely surreal for this pre-psychedelic period ('Have you heard, it's in the stars, next July we collide with Mars') until I discovered it's sung by a couple of pie-eyed drunks. Greater yet is Bing's guest spot with Louis Armstrong's legendary ensemble on Now You Has Jazz, especially in its exquisitely hip presentation of each band member: 'some shimmering sharps and flats'.

In fact, while it may be 'Frank's world and we just live in it' as the posters say in Little Italy, this is actually Bing's film and Frank only co-stars in it. The senior singer's sleepy croon is key to High Society; Sinatra supports the one male singer he ever deferred to. Though I've revered Sinatra all my life I'm a recent convert to the subtler charm of Crosby, helped enormously by the CD A Centennial Anthology Of His Decca Recordings. To savour the whole cast's response to Cole Porter's genius, I'd recommend the High Society soundtrack album.

As for the film it can - like A Hard Day's Night - feel a bit stilted until the songs come along and lift it to the heavens. Yet you'll relish its timeless dialogue: 'One of the servants has been at the sherry again'; 'Isn't it time for your milk and arsenic, darling?'; 'You know how I feel about my grandmother, but I'd sell her for a drink'.

High Society is rich entertainment of a kind no longer made. Nobody in it goes around being 'dark' or 'edgy'. Everyone is clever and well-dressed and not really wicked; the tone is grown-up. It's also escapist, élitist and soothing (though stimulating in its wit). In that sense it's everything that modern cinema set out to abolish - and successfully. Films like this will eventually get made again, but possibly not in our lifetimes.

As for my imaginary Auntie Gracie, this was her last movie. On the day that High Society was having its gala premiere in Hollywood, Miss Kelly was sailing into Monte Carlo harbour to become a real-life Princess. She remained for many years a beautiful woman but proved, in the end, an even worse driver than I am. She died on one of the hair-pin bends above the Principality in 1982. I drink to her memory each time I'm back in Mayo.

Buy the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

Buy the DVD at Amazon.com