Kate & Leopold

Infobox Film
name = Kate & Leopold


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = James Mangold
producer = Cathy Konrad
writer = Steven Rogers
James Mangold
narrator =
starring = Meg Ryan
Hugh Jackman
Liev Schreiber
Breckin Meyer
Natasha Lyonne
music = Rolfe Kent
cinematography = Stuart Dryburgh
editing = David Brenner
distributor = Miramax Films
Buena Vista International
Twentieth Century Fox
released = 23 August2002
runtime = 119 mins
country = United States of America
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0035423

"Kate & Leopold" is a 2001 romantic comedy motion picture that tells a story of a Duke who time travels from 1876 to the present and falls in love with a career woman in New York.

The film is directed by James Mangold and stars Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. The DVD edition contains two versions of the film: one, the original theatrical release, runs for 118 minutes while the director's cut version runs for 122. One scene in the director's cut shows Ryan's character in a test screening for a new movie and also features a cameo by Mangold.

Plot

In 1876, Leopold Alexis Elijah Walker Gareth Thomas Mountbatten, Duke of Albany and inventor of the elevator, is a stifled dreamer. Strict Uncle Millard has no patience for Leopold's disrespect for the monarchy, chastising him and telling him he must marry a rich American, as the Mountbatten family finances are depleted. His uncle has told him that on his "thirtieth birthday he had become a blemish to the family name".

The Duke finds Stuart Besser, an amateur physicist (and descendant of Leopold, according to deleted scenes) perusing his schematic diagrams and taking photographs of them. He had seen him earlier at Roebling's speech about the Brooklyn Bridge. Leopold follows Stuart and tries to save him from what he thinks is a suicide, falling after him into the portal that brought the man there in the first place.

Leopold awakens in 21st century New York. He is at first confused and, thinking that he has been kidnapped, he takes a strident and defensive stance against Stuart. Stuart says that he has created formulae to forecast portals in the temporal universe and that Leopold must stay inside his apartment until the portal opens again a week later. As Stuart takes his dog out, he is injured by falling into the elevator shaft, and is eventualinstitutionalized for speaking about his scientific discovery.

Leopold is intrigued by the cynical and ambitious Kate McKay, Stuart's ex-girlfriend, who comes to the apartment for her Palm Pilot pointer. He observes that she is a "career woman" and states that he once dated a librarian from Sussex. Kate dismisses him and demands that he take Stuart's dog for a walk. Leopold is overwhelmed to see that Roebling's bridge is still standing. Back at the apartment, he befriends Charlie, Kate's brother and an actor between gigs, who believes him to be an actor as well, steadfast to his character.

Kate and Leopold become romantically involved, as they dine and tour New York.

When shooting begins on the commercial which Leopold has agreed to act in, Leopold finds the product disgusting. He cannot see how she would have him endorse a flawed item without qualms, and declares that "when someone is involved in something entirely without merit, one withdraws". Echoing his uncle, Kate says that sometimes one has to do things they don't want to. He chides her about integrity. She retorts, "I don't have time for pious speeches from two hundred year old men who have not worked a day in their life". Their dalliance seems at an end.

Stuart escapes from the mental hospital, and while Kate is accepting her promotion at a company banquet, he and Charlie are racing to meet her. Moments before she goes on stage, they arrive and produce pictures from Stuart's camera that show her in 1876. Stuart says that he had thought he disrupted the spacetime continuum, but actually "the whole thing is a beautiful 4-D pretzel of kismetic inevitability".

Kate chooses a life with Leopold over her career, and the three of them escape to the Brooklyn Bridge. There, catching the portal before it closes, Kate vanishes into 1876 where Leopold is himself about to announce his bride's name. As soon as he sees Kate, he announces hers.

In the closing scene, both of them kiss and camera is drawn outward showing a wall clock hung depicting 12:15.

Cast

*Meg Ryan - Kate McKay
*Hugh Jackman - Leopold Mountbatten
*Liev Schreiber - Stuart Besser
*Breckin Meyer - Charlie McKay
*Natasha Lyonne - Darci
*Bradley Whitford - J. J. Camden
*Paxton Whitehead - Millard Mountbatten
*Spalding Gray - Dr. Geisler
*Josh Stamberg - Bob
*Matthew Sussman - Phil
*Charlotte Ayanna - Patrice
*Philip Bosco - Otis
*Renee Zellweger - Samba Queen

Film Music

# A Clock in New York
# I Want Him Resplendent
# Leopold Chases Stuart to Brooklyn
# That Was Your Best?
# Let's Go!
# Leopold Sees the Completed Bridge
# You Did So Great (Kate's Theme)
# Galloping
# Dearest Kate...
# Prolixin/Leopold and Charlie Buy Flowers
# Charlie Wins Patrice, Leopold Wins Kate
# Secret Drawer
# Time for Bed
# Charlie Realises Leopold Was For Real – 1876
# Kate Goes to the Awards
# Kate Sees the Pictures – "I have to Go"
# You Have to Cross the Girder
# Back in 1876 – Waltz
# Back Where I Belong (song – Jula Bell)
# Until... (song – Sting)

Award and Nominations

* In 2001 the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Song for the song "Until", written and performed by Sting.

* In 2002 the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song.

* Hugh Jackman was nominated in 2001 for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Trivia and mistakes

Leopold has the same name and title as Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the youngest son of Queen Victoria. In April 1876, at the time of the beginning of the film, Prince Leopold was a 23-year-old student at Christ Church, Oxford. In the film, the Leopold character is at least 30 years old. Also, the real Leopold suffered from hemophilia which is not mentioned in the film, and the character claims to have been "born a Duke", which would suggest he is the posthumous son of a Duke, like the real Leopold's son, Prince Charles Edward. Also, in addition, although Mountbatten — the family name of the fictional Leopold — is the surname of a cadet branch of the British Royal Family, the name "Mountbatten" was not adopted until 1917, due to anti-German sentiment in Great Britain during World War I. (The original form of the name was Battenberg.)

In April 1876, at the beginning of the film, Leopold is listening to a speech by, supposedly, Roebling. (In reality, Roebling died in 1869.) Even if this was meant to be his son, Washington A. Roebling, chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, he too never visited the site after 1872, owing to his struggle with caisson disease.

Leopold lists Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, among others, who were not famous in 1876. For instance, it was not until 1877 that Edison invented the phonograph which earned him his fame.

There is a scene where Leopold, Charlie and Hector are singing "I Am the Very Model of a Model Major-General", from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "The Pirates of Penzance", which had its United States' première in New York City on December 31, 1879, whereas Leopold claimed that he had attended the première of "The Pirates of Penzance" the previous month (in March 1876). Leopold also got the story of the opera wrong. A similar scene involving a discussion of "La Bohème" would likewise be impossible, as Giacomo Puccini's version of the opera debuted in 1896 and Ruggiero Leoncavallo's in 1897 (though there is a chance that Leopold might have seen a television production of "La Bohème"; Leopold never said that he saw the opera 'live' and we know that he watched television on Stuart's television set). In the Italian version of the movie, the characters talk about Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata", which had premiered in 1850s, and so fits better with the story.

Stuart was desperate to make sure that Leopold returned to his own time, not out of concern for the invention of elevators, but because Leopold was his great-great-grandfather (and because Stuart would cease to exist if Leopold did not return to his own time due to the grandfather paradox). This situation was de-emphasised in the theatrical release since Stuart's ex-girlfriend Kate proves to be his great-great-grandmother. A deleted scene in the 'out-takes' on the DVD release shows this point dawning on Kate and Stuart in the back of a taxi.

Kate's dress changes in the last scene. When she lands in 1876, it suddenly has some trim around the neckline and a train, bringing it closer to the dresses worn by women of the time. This was, however, done intentionally, as stated on the special featurettes of the DVD.

When Leopold wakes up in Stuart's apartment, he says Stuart "could be Jack the Ripper for all I know"; however, since Leopold is from 1876 he couldn't know about Jack the Ripper, who didn't begin his crime spree until the late 1880s.

Additionally, in the film, Leopold was supposed to have invented the passenger lift. In reality Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, had nothing to do with the invention of the passenger lift. The tongue-in-cheek connection in the film with the elevator is that Leopold's butler is named Otis.

External links

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* [http://www.currentfilm.com/dvdreviews3/kateleopolddvd.html "Kate & Leopold"] at currentfilm.com DVD reviews