Father of the Bride (1950)

In director Vincente Minnelli's domestic comedy about a wedding ceremony:

• the opening voice-over narration and flashback of harrassed father, Stanley Banks (Oscar-nominated Spencer Tracy), talking to the camera about the stresses before (and after) a lavish June wedding for his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), and his recollections of how she had grown up so fast to become engaged - with an extravagant marriage ceremony imminent: ("I would like to say a few words about weddings. I've just been through one. Not my own, my daughter's. Someday in the far future, I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence, but not now. I always used to think that marriage was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, get married, they have babies. Eventually the babies grow up, meet other babies, and they fall in love and get married, and so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it's not only simple, it's downright monotonous. But I was wrong. I figured without the wedding")
• Stanley's desire to "get a peek at this Superman," her fiancee, Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor) and the lengthy, one-sided "man-to-man" financial talk they had (three months before the nuptials) to determine if Buckley could suitably support Kay
• the scene of Stanley facing his daughter's overbearing caterers: ("An experienced caterer can make you ashamed of your house in fifteen minutes")
• the segment of his nightmarish vision of what might happen at a disastrous wedding ceremony (he imagined himself appearing late, in tatters, and not able to walk down the springy and rubbery aisle, as his daughter screamed)
• his midnight snack kitchen scene with his daughter over a bottle of milk, when she told him, "Nothing ever fazes you, does it?"
• Stanley's confusion and regret about losing his daughter: ("What's it going to be like to come home and not find her. Not to hear her voice calling 'Hi Pops' as I come in. I suddenly realized what I was doing. I was giving up Kay. Something inside me was beginning to hurt")
• the tearjerking scene of Kay's post-wedding phone call (on her way to her honeymoon) to lovingly say 'thank you' to her father: ("And Pops, you've been just wonderful. I love you. I love you very much. Bye bye")
• Stanley's memorable last line: ("Nothing's really changed, has it? You know what they say: 'My son's my son until he gets him a wife, but my daughter's my daughter all of her life.' All of our life")