Royal Wedding (1951)
Directed by Stanley Donen
A brother and sister dance act encounter challenges and romance when booked in London during the Royal Wedding.
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What critics compared Royal Wedding to
It's obviously inspired by Fred Astaire's wall and ceiling dance sequence in "Royal Wedding," and the fact that it was shot the same way (with a revolving set rather than computer-generated effects) makes those scenes all the more impressive to behold.
The most rousing action sequence, a fight in a zero-gravity hallway, cleverly lifts from "2001" (and "Royal Wedding," in which Fred Astaire danced on the walls and the ceiling).
There are images in this smoothly elegant film that will be talked about for decades: six sleepers floating weightlessly in a hotel room; a Paris street folding in on itself; and in an echo of Fred Astaire’s dancing-on-the-ceiling scene from “Royal Wedding,” two guys crawl all over a ceiling with the same special-effect technique, except they’re not tap-dancing — they’re trying to kill each other.
The reference is to Fred Astaire, who did the same with a hat rack, in “Royal Wedding” (1951)—part of a chorus of echoes that resound throughout.
And for a man in his late 70s, he tackles the role’s intense physical requirements with gusto; at one point, the ship capsizes, sending Redford rolling up the walls and to the ceiling in what looks like the horror-movie version of Fred Astaire’s famous gravity-defying dance in “Royal Wedding.”
In scenes recalling Stanley Donen’s “Royal Wedding,” Our Man appears to dance on the cabin ceiling as the ship rolls like a toy in the thundering waves.
(When the bag-rupture first happens, she goes full Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” rolling up the walls and across the ceiling.)
At first, she's walking up the walls and onto the ceiling like Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding," but soon she becomes focused.
I don’t mind that this drug allows her to writhe up a wall and across the ceiling as if Fred Astaire was having a seizure in Royal Wedding .
This releases the CPH4 into her system, turning her eyes purple and forcing her to re-enact Fred Astaire's "Royal Wedding" dance on the walls and ceiling, but in excruciating pain.
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Production designer Edward Thomas’ sets are fantabulous, especially one where the room is literally turned upside down ala Fred Astaire’s “Royal Wedding” and Lionel Ritchie’s “Dancing on The Ceiling.” But, the most compelling question Escape Room will leave you with is “…do you want to try one thing that really scares you?”