The Prince and the Showgirl
(1957)
Probably more famous for the much-reported difficulties that
Laurence Olivier had with co-star Marilyn Monroe than the film itself. It’s
either testament to Oliver the director that she is easily the most enjoyable
part of the film or an indictment of Oliver the actor that his titular Prince
is played with all the warmth, and certainly the demeanour, of a leg of cold
ham.
Monroe was 31 when the film was released, Olivier 19 years her
senior (playing 45-ish). It’s fair to say that Olivier’s flirtation with
Hollywood stardom had been brief; Rebecca
had shown a dashing, intense leading man not-quite-comfortable with such
duties, while 49th Parallel
gave us that rarest of his big screen personas; dashing, relaxed and highly
charismatic (a shame then, that he appears only in the first section of the
film). The fifteen years or so between were notable for a triumvirate of
Shakespeare adaptations that he directed, starred in and (two of the three)
produced. He won Best Actor Oscar for
Hamlet, which also took Best Picture (and he was nominated for Director) in
1948. Four years earlier he had been nominated in the same categories for Henry V. Richard III, tow years before Prince,
didn’t go down quite as well, and he had to settle for an Actor nomination
alone. So what was the attraction of Prince,
even given the Terrence Rattigan screenplay (based on his stage play)? It was
far from his beloved Bard, and the presence of his co-star seemed like
shameless chasing of big audiences. A few years later, with Crassus in Spartacus, an era of notable and
not-so-notable supporting roles would be ushered in.
Monroe, meanwhile, had been a bona fide star for a mere four
years, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch making the biggest
impression. Cast to her strengths, her brand of airheaded innocence made for
irresistible comedy, but no one was coming forward with tales of how easy she
was to work with. Certainly, the combination of the two performers looks like a
marriage of opposites on paper, let alone the production itself.
Olivier’s problems with his lead are reportedly the reason for
his absence from film directing for another 13 years. His presence in the film is
not so strange when one learns that he had played the role on stage (with
Vivien Leigh in the Monroe role); he was in place when the Monroe came aboard
and she had no say (despite having quickly become a major player who could
allegedly demand 75% of the film’s profits; whether this was gross is unclear).
Still, Olivier clearly knew how to make
his lead’s assets feature prominently, both in terms of personality and
physicality. The Monroe butt is in prominent display throughout (sealed in a
figure hugging dress, of which there were several versions made to support the
star’s fluctuating weight at the time).
If the production appeared thorny ground from the off, the
results weren’t favoured either. Critically Prince
wasn’t much loved, and commercially it merely scraped back its costs (it
also inspired My Week with Marilyn,
released a couple of years ago).
Set in London against the backdrop of the coronation of King
George V (1911), Prince concerns the
relationship of the Carpathian Prince Regent, Charles (Olivier) with actress
Elsie Marine (Monroe). Whom he initially invites to the Carpathian Embassy for
supper; she discovers it is a pretext for a one-night stand. Nothing goes
according to his plan, and her stay extends beyond Charles’ comfort zone, as
she strikes up friendships with the young King Nicholas (Charles’ son, played
by Jeremy Spenser) and the elderly Queen (Charles’ mother-in-law, played by
Sybil Thorndike). Charles is a rigid, stern figure and his relationship with the
incumbent king is fraught. The British government wishes to protect its
interests in Europe, where tensions are rising, but Nicholas is keen to depose
his father with the help of German contacts. Of course, the involvement of
Elsie provokes less than predictable results for all concerned.
Olivier, as mentioned, really is a terrible old luvvie here. His
performance is highly theatrical; all exaggerated mannerisms and elongated
(semi-) Eastern European accent. There’s nothing to convince you that he’s
falling for Elsie, just as her sudden announcement that she is in love with him
is mystifying (to be fair, she states she doesn’t know why but this makes it no
less baffling). Monroe fares much better, certainly in respect of her familiar little-girl-comedy
act. She comes up short, however, when we’re asked to believe that she speaks
fluent German and the mask of her ignorance is dropped for insightful
suggestions (it’s not as if the script is asking us to believe she’s a
brainiac; Charles refers to her as having “the
mind of a backwards child”). There
are definitely occasions when the free-and-easy versus starchy-and-uptight
yield amusing results (“It’s your medals;
they’re tickling me”) but Olivier isn’t versatile enough at comedy to make
the most of it (perhaps Mike Myers could remake it…)
The failure of the romance is one thing, but Olivier’s lack of
economy in the storytelling is a bigger problem. This sort of material should
be rendered with a lightness of touch, rather than stagey leadeness. There’s a
scene of Elsie being overcome by the beauty of Westminster Abbey that seems to
go on for about five minutes. And the song Monroe wails at one point is rather
dreary too.
Rattigan begins by taking some potshots at the abuses of power
and status, with a fairly pronounced sexual set-up established (there are a
number of quite overt references to sexual activity throughout the film, which
must have been a touch risqué for the mid-to-late 1950s) but then drops any
subtext for fairly run-of-the-mill plotting.
Nevertheless, I didn’t find it quite the chore to sit through
that some would have you believe (this was the second time I’ve seen the film,
but little had stuck in the mind from my first viewing). The strange clash of
approaches between Olivier and Monroe is fascinating. And there are some highly
enjoyable supporting turns, including the estimable Richard Wattis as the
put-upon embassy official Northbrook. Thorndike and Spenser are also good (the
latter, in particular, manages to make a potential brattish character
sympathetic).
One might point to the abrupt, non-committal ending as a reason
for the film’s failure, and I don’t think it helps. But really, do you want to
see these two together? Tellingly, there is a much stronger rapport between Elsie
and the young king. Ultimately. the problem may have been Olivier’s autonomy; a
more comedy-minded director might have staged the action less ploddingly and
elicited a more sympathetic turn from the leading man.
***
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