The Prince and the Showgirl
|
List Price: Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Prince and the Showgirl
Movie Review: The Prince... The Showgirl... The Calamity.
Summary: 2 Stars
I rate this the most un-interesting of all of Marilyns roles. As a devoted & lifelong M.M. fan, this is the only one of her films that I've only gotten through twice. The first time, just to see it, the second time, to see if I was possibly mistaken in my negative appraisal of it. I wasn't. While Marilyn is certainly at her most etherally beautiful, this film was destined for failure from the beginning. The notorious pairing of Monroe with Laurence Olivier was a mis-calculation from its inception. It is obvious that Olivier needed a "commercial" hit movie at that point in his career, and, while his wife, Vivien Leigh, had originated the role of Elsie Marina on stage, Marilyn Monroe Productions bought the rights to "The Sleeping Prince", its original title. Also, Marilyn at that time was a highly commercial draw, and her name with Oliviers would be more of a guarantee of box office dollars (they thought.) It soon became obvious what everyone suspected, that Olivier did not respect and was secretly humiliated by a co-starring role with Americas notorious sex symbol. Also, it was reported that, because this was being produced by M.M. Productions, she was literally in an "in- charge" position, which equally humiliated him. In "The Noel Coward Diaries", Noel Coward, a good friend of Oliviers, expressed the general snobbish opinion when he writes, in the year 1956, that starring with Monroe was a humiliating but commercially necessary decision for Olivier, and "to hell with eminence", a barely disguised aspersion on Marilyn. Her arrival in England was met with an immediate press conference, where she was condescendingly queried as to what her favorite Beethoven numbers were, and, how long did she think a whale could stay under water ??, the implications being obvious. To add to all the pressure and high expectations of such a pairing, M.M. had recently wed Arthur Miller, immersing her in a highly intellectual world, where the insecure Marilyn, though naturally bright and intuitive, was ill equipped to always hold her own. The fact that Olivier was also hired by Marilyn to direct this film didn't help, and his comment to Marilyn near the beginning of the shoot, "Okay, Marilyn..Be sexy!", was an obvious assumption as to where Olivier thought Marilyns only true talent lie, and only served to undermine her already shaky confidence. The "most exciting combination since black and white !", as Joshua Logan deemed this collaboration , went from bad to worse, with Olivier detesting Marilyns growing insecurities, and what he viewed as her unprofessionalism. He also hated "The Method", the acting style which M.M. had been influenced by in her continuing studies at The Actors Studio. By the time this film wrapped, everyone involved was barely on speaking terms, and Marilyns exit from England was the opposite of the fan fare she confronted upon her arrival. The movie was almost universally panned upon release, with many noting the obvious lack of chemistry between the principals. Oddly enough, Olivier was surprised with a screening of this film , many years after its filming, and Marilyns death, as a joke by friends of his. They were all surprisingly unaminous in their appraisal after its viewing, as Olivier wrote: "Everyone was clamorous in their praises, I was as good as could be...and Marilyn! Marilyn was quite wonderful, the best of all. So...what do you know ?" Be that as it may, I still rate this the least interesting of her roles... she was not respected before her arrival to film this movie, or in the environment created around her during its filming, and it shows. It does no service, I feel, to her brilliant career, except as a further visual testament to her beauty. Even that is not enough for me to sit through this laborious mistake again. To see M.M. at her magical best, watch "Bus Stop", "Some Like It Hot", or "The Misfits."Movie Review: MY FAVORITE MM FILM
Summary: 5 Stars
I've seen this film perhaps twenty times since it came out in 1957 and find the glowing DVD version perfection, much better than the laserdisk.When I first saw it, I believe it was projected through a lens masked for widescreen. So I was disappointed through the years when the videocassette and laserdisk versions weren't in widescreen. Now I'm delighted that the DVD isn't in widescreen, since the show was shot in standard format and we get almost the whole negative image on screen, with only a shot or two faintly cramped or with a figure not quite as fully seen as it was meant to be. No such worry about MM though, no image of her gets trimmed: the magnificent ballgown she's poured into becomes a character in itself. For me, this is MM's greatest performance just as "Camille" is Garbo's. In "Camille" you never catch Garbo acting, every line feels tossed off or thrown away except the big ones, which get the full heartcry the script calls for. In MM's film her every line flows from her with an assurance she matched only in "Bus Stop" and never feels acted. Inge's "Bus Stop", aside frin MM's scenes, strikes me as far less interesting than Rattigan's neatly built comedy, whose scenes without MM retain strong interest both because of the script and of Olivier's hand for detail and grip on staging. Also, Jack Cardiff fills the screen with glowing color to match the decor and costumes and much of my delight lies in having the full screen aglow, wall to wall and top to bottom with luscious light--light focused often on MM's sheer glory. Olivier's line readings are great fun, a grotesque joy, but MM reads like an angel and steals the show with her heartfelt method realism. What can one say about her that isn't less than she deserves here? For the horrors behind the filming, you might turn to Colin Clark's "The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set with Marilyn and Olivier" (St. Martin's Press, $20.95) where this angel's neuroses are revealed in full. And yet Sybil Thordyke, her costar here as the Queen Mother, said of MM during the shooting that MM was the only one on the set who knew how to act on film and be natural. The crew often thought she wasn't acting--until the rushes starte showing up. Colin Clark himself (he's the son of art historian Kenneth Clark, was Olivier's gofer on the set, and later helped establish NYC's PBS station Channel 13) said that when the film was done, despite the endless agony everyone had working with her, MM was "a force of nature" onscreen, although the whole crew threw her wrap party's gifts into the garbage. Yes, one must admit that MM had more serious flaws than we the still living. But do we take issue with the model for Velazquez's gorgeous Venus in "The Toilet of Venus" (who may have been a waitress he hired) whose long bare body and glorious behind have the same pale rosiness as MM's skin under Cardiff's lighting, while Cardiff treats her hair and eyes and mouth, her bottom and her bitty little belly, with all the care of Velazquez. We no longer remember Velazquez's model but that painting of her captures the eternal feminine. And someday MM's Elsie Marina in this film will rise in the heavens of art and be remembered while MM becomes a receding historical figure, like Pola Negri the Vamp whose dark eyes once spilled their eroticism over the planet, and just as Garbo the unread rather brainless woman fades farther from view every year while her Marguerite Gautier in "Camille" remains a serene image of artistic divinity.
As a footnote, let me add that all the actors are superb, as is the score. I was so delighted by the score (not to mention MM's sweet singing) in 1957 that I wrote a fan letter to Richard Addinsell, the composer (best-known for his "Warsaw Concerto") and he wrote back about his thankfulness to Olivier for his not asking him for "music by the yard," as was the custom when Addinsell wrote film music for others, but rather allowed him to let go and write every note from the heart. That music adds no little lift of pleasure to the images--and to MM and Olivier's big waltz scene at the ball. May I live to see this wonderful movie many more times.
Movie Review: One of the Best Movies
Summary: 5 Stars
The cemistry between Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier is great. It's a sweet movie, as well as funny.Movie Review: Monroe at her peak
Summary: 4 Stars
I gave this film four stars--each for Monroe, who is at her dazzling comedic best here. The film itself is a slow period piece, lanquidly directed by Laurence Olivier, but MM breathes exuberant life into her every onscreen moment. Playing a character with some smarts and savvy, given wittier lines than usual, Monore simply walks away with the film. She is a vigorous American showgirl--healthy, vital, nobody's fool. If anyone possibly doubts MOnroe's ability to create character, compare this vital delectable performance with the weary, worn-out Cherie of "Bus Stop" filmed just months before. Both performances reveal facets of Monroe's talent she was never allowed to use again--not even in "Some Like It Hot." Dame Sybil Thorndike, playing Olivier's mother-in-law steals scenes from Monroe AND Sir Laurence! The coronation sequence is deadly dull and the ending--Monroe's rapid about face--is silly. But the film lives for her delicious high-spirits and wit. Two other points--Monroe wears the most unforgiving gown of her career, a white number that she never takes off, which rather cuts down on much-needed visual variety. And the voice that she uses in the brief musical interlude is indeed hers; she has simply pitched it to a MUCH higher key! This is not as appealing as her her usual singing style, but appropriate for the period.
"The Prince and The Showgirl" is not Monroe's most famous role, but it is one of her greatest performances. And that she was able to create something that appears so effortless at a time of tremendous personal crisis (she miscarried during the film) stands as a testament to her oft-maligned professionalism.
Movie Review: Peculiar
Summary: 4 Stars
No, Marilyn can NOT act, in this film or any other. Yes, she is a great screen presence, worth watching just to watch. Sad, because this could have been a very good film (NOT great, just very good). She has all the wonderful lines in the movie, but with no sense of timing or inflection or delivery. Olivier is merely wooden. The dowager is admirably restrained in a role that could have gone over the top in cutesyness. The young king/prince Nicholas, played by Jeremy Spenser, is charming and gorgeous (It's totally illogical that Marilyn doesn't fall for HIM!--and by the way, whatever happened to Jeremy Spenser?) Still, overall I give it 4 stars because it is quite watchable. And I'll watch it again (if for no other reason than to try to understand the strange ending).