Back to 1957 with ....

When I was 11 in 1957, a favourite movie magazine - one of the American fan ones - was maybe called "Screen Stories", featuring stories and photos from the current movies. This particular issue featured RAINTREE COUNTY, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, LOVING YOU, FUNNY FACE and others -- I can still visualise it. This week two of these re-surfaced, the Marilyn and the Elizabeth saga. Of the two I think Marilyn came out the winner.

Both had been working hard throughout the early Fifties, Liz having four movies out in 1954, but once GIANT catapulted her into the  major league, she slowed down to one prestige film a year .... as did Marilyn, who had formed her own production company with Milton H Greene, after moving to New York and was seeking more important projects, than the fluff 20th Century Fox saw her in. Terence Rattigan's play, THE SLEEPING PRINCE, seemed the ideal choice, with Laurence Olivier directing and co-starring, and a good British cast, filmed in England in 1956. We have covered that in detail before here, particularly when the film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN came out. Looking at it again now it is utter delight.

It is a totally different Marilyn from her Fox movies, ace cameraman Jack Cardiff photographs her lovingly, she had never looked better and proves herself a delightful comedienne, holding her own with Olivier, whose sly portrayal is a joy too. Marilyn in that skintight white dress, with the white choker necklace, and the nice period detail. 
Good to see Richard Wattis in a good role for once, and Marilyn with Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Vera Day and with that forgotten actor Jeremy Spenser as the young prince,  (All covered at labels). Of course the production was notoriously difficult with Marilyn's delays and insecurities, but none of it shows on the screen. Its a pleasure to sink into any time. 

RAINTREE COUNTY on the other hand is now a colossal bore and did Taylor no favours. Her damaged southern belle is no Scarlett O'Hara, and the film is a plod through the usual Civil War dramatics. 
Eva Marie Saint is wasted, but we get lots of the young Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Nigel Patrick. Montgomery Clift seems to stumble through it, We wonder which scenes were before and after his car accident. He and Taylor though did look great in Bob Willoughby's photos from the set, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, The film was never given the full dvd release initially, as though MGM did not want to bother with it. At least Liz had those Tennessee Williams roles lined up next: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, while Marilyn went back to Billy Wilder and the immortal SOME LIKE IT HOT. Liz may have been the dramatic actress, but Marilyn could sing, do comedy and musicals, as well as dramatics, and seems to have endured better.

Monroe and Taylor would be in contention again five years later in 1962 when CLEOPATRA and MM's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where making the headlines .... 

A movie moment ...

I love that whole montage of Astaire shooting the fashion shots of Audrey in Paris in FUNNY FACE, but particularly this: she walks down the steps of the Louvre under that statue (The Winged Victory of Samothrace) and says "shoot the picture, shoot the picture" as he tries to get the shot ... cinema captured in a moment. 

FUNNY FACE is not only the essence of 1957 it still looks marvellous now. 

Festive cheer 2

Two treats lined up for holiday viewing: two Katharine Hepburn movies ideal for this time of year. THE LION IN WINTER, now spruced up in a new edition with lots of features, is an ideal Christmas film and is of course a feast of acting with Hepburn and OToole firing on all cylinders as Henry II and his warring brood celebrate Christmas at Chinon in 1183, and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine is left out of prison for the holidays. Anthony Harvey crafts a solid entertainment from James Goldman's play, and John Barry's faux medieval score is one of his best. It looks great too. I had already met Jane Merrow (label) and seen Timothy Dalton on the stage, so knew how good they were, and John Castle was fresh from BLOW-UP.
It was marvellous seeing it for the first time on the widescreen of the old Odeon Haymarket back in 1968, I still have the souvenir brochure. Hepburn dazzled us then.

DESK SET from 1957 is a more recent discovery, and may be my favourite Tracy-Hepburn, but has that long central act at the office christmas party, where Kate, splendid in red, does a delicious tipsy scene with Joan Blondell, Tracy is fun for a change, and Kate even sings "Night and Day"! (More on DESK SET at Kate label). 

It may also be time to have another look at CAROL, taking us back to that Christmas in 1950s New York, when Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara meet at the department store ......

Take 3 girls - Italian style

Here's an oddity: despite my affection for British and Italian cinema I had never heard of SOUVENIR D'ITALIE (or IT HAPPENED IN ROME) a 1957 confection about 3 girls travelling in Italy - its sort of a romantic comedy with lots of scenery, a fascinating view now. But why it is so unknown, ok its just a bit of fluff, but maybe it never even played here - I checked my 1957 "Films and Filming" magazines and there is no review or ads for it (ditto another '57 one filmed in Italy: Diana Dors and Vittorio Gassman in THE GIRL AT THE PALIO set at the famous Palio race in Sienna). 

This one - SOUVENIR D'ITALIE - features prim English girl June Laverick (she wears spectacles!) driving her snazzy sportscar and giving a lift to hitchers Isabelle Corey (the headstrong one) and German Ingeborg Schoner (the sensible one). The car zooms zooms over the cliff into the sea at Portofino, so the gals have to hitch. We see them in Florence,Venice and Pisa before they head to Rome, so yes lots of Italy as it was 50+ years ago. 

An amusing sequence sees British grand dame Isabel Jeans (in a dry run for her role in GIGI) posing by that statue of David, with Alberto Sordi as her companion. He soon joins the girls through. Other men are Gabrielle Ferzetti and Massimo Girotti and Vittorio De Sica - for it is he - as a Count who offers the girls some hospitality in Venice. The men of course are dubbed but it does not matter in a slight trifle like this. I liked it a lot, directed by Antonio Pietrangeli. The girls of course all end up with their particular guy. 

June Laverick was a British starlet of the era, who did a few trifles (THE DUKE WORE JEANS with Tommy Steele, a Norman Wisdom film, and a good role in Losey's THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEMAN in 1958, last credit in 1970). 

This was Italy before the LA DOLCE VITA era took off, Corey went on to Bolognini's GIOVANI MARITI while Ferzetti was on that island with Antonioni and Vitti for L'AVVENTURA filmed in late 1959.  Vittorio clocked up 10 acting credits in '57 - he probably just spent a few days on this one. 

Take 4 girls - American style

Another delirious 1957 treat: (which I reviewed back in 2011)

FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN. I had totally forgotten this 1957 Universal-International item though I know I saw it at the time, it is perhaps, like AWAY ALL BOATS, the quintessential U-I flick. We have 4 girls arriving in Hollywood, all up for an important part in a new biblical epic.

They are: Julie Adams [with her fearsome mother Mabel Albertson], Italian go-getter Elsa Martinelli, from France Gia Scala [who has a secret husband and child] and from Austria Marianne Cook (or Koch – she was the mentally ill wife in Sirk’s INTERLUDE) who is recovering from losing her beloved in a car accident]. There is also one Rita Holloway, the studio's main star who is only ever seen from the rear and looks uncannily like Jayne Mansfield in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT as she sways around the studio lot.

The girls are nicely depicted and the guys they meet include director George Nader (ideal for Julie), actor-on-the-make John Gavin, playboy Grant Williams [that INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN] and composer Sydney Chaplin. The very attractive Gia (who got the GUNS OF NAVARONE gig but later commited suicide) has the least role here. Julie is as attractive as ever and Elsa (right) is the most eye-catching, she really is the most under-rated of the Italian sirens.

It plays out nicely with a surprise ending and is SO Fifties! The girls are not complete of course until they each have a new man, and the scene where they gleefully catch fish coming ashore to lay their eggs would horrify today's sensibilities. Written and directed by one Jack Sher.

Last summer re-view: La Isla Del Sol

As summer ebbs away here and autumn sets in, our final summer re-view is, appropriately, ISLAND IN THE SUN (or as my Spanish dvd calls it LA ISLA DEL SOL), that sun-drenched trashfest/engrossing drama from 20th Century Fox in 1957, with fascinating casting and it all looks gorgeous, as per my earlier review.  To recap:

ISLAND IN THE SUN. “Scandal, political intrigue and inter-racial romance on a steamy Caribbean island” – well, that’s what the blurb says, and continues: “Its 1957 on the tropical island of Santa Mara (so no, its not Jamaica) where a charismatic new black leader threatens to unseat British rule.” The result though is an engrossing two hours as several plotlines converge around the leading players. Joan Fontaine has a chaste romance with Harry Belafonte (despite the posed still above they do not touch in the film) Which Cannot Be, so they have to give each other up, but it gives her a chance to wear some nice summer outfits and halter tops, with white gloves of course. 
Joan Collins also gets to wear some nifty outfits as she romances a stolid Stephen Boyd (an English lord !); James Mason gets into a murderous rage over his wife’s relationship with Michael Rennie; Dorothy Dandridge (CARMEN JONES) is lovely but rather wasted, and Diana Wynyard is good support, along with John Williams as the police chief tracking down the murderer. 

It was a best-selling novel by Alec Waugh  (a brother of Evelyn) and Darryl F Zanuck produces and gives it that 20th Century Fox plush Cinemascope look mixing in contract players like Boyd, Collins, Patricia Owens, with the more established stars, so another 20th Century Fox literary potboiler like their PEYTON PLACE, THE SUN ALSO RISES, THE WAYWARD BUS, SANCTUARY, THE SOUND AND THE FURY, HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN. The island here could be a mix of Barbados and Grenada and is a set-designer’s dream. The title song is one of the first pop hits I remember ... A star-studded entertaining chunk of trash then from director Robert Rossen, for a damp afternoon, and so very 1957. 
PS on Fontaine & Belafonte - it caused a furore in America in the '60s when Petula Clark touched him when they were singing on one of her tv shows .... so imagine the fuss in 1957 ! Poor Joan received hate mail! On location, it was the other Joan - La Collins - who got to first base with Harry.

The Pajama Game, 1957

THE PAJAMA GAME from 1957 is worth another look too, and great to see it in a good print at last, as there have been some ropey public domain copies around. This is another Broadway musical transferred to the screen and it looks wonderful with all those splashy colours and great staging of those classic numbers. Doris Day replaces Janis Paige from the stage show but most of the other cast including John Raitt (father of singer Bonnie Raitt) are intact from the stage show. Bob Fosse's staging of "Steam Heat" with the great Carol Haney is just perfectly Fosse. Doris (before her PILLOW TALK makeover) has probably her best 1950s moments here. Its another Stanley Donen classic then, as we head off to "Hernando's Hideaway" or that "Once A Year Day" .... 

Employees of the Sleeptite Pajama Factory in Iowa are looking for a whopping seven-and-a-half cent an hour increase and they won't take no for an answer. Babe Williams is their feisty employee representative but she may have found her match in shop superintendent Sid Sorokin. When the two get together they wind up discussing a whole lot more than job actions! 

1957 was certainly a classic year for musicals and I was 11 and enjoying them all on the big screen: also Donen's FUNNY FACE, plus Cukor's LES GIRLS, Mamoulian's SILK STOCKINGS and Sidney's not quite so great PAL JOEY, but it has its moments ...  I need to see 1955's MY SISTER EILEEN now again too, with more Fosse and Tommy Rall as well as Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon. 

Something for the weekend: the mystery of Cyd's skirt

Here's a mystery: Cyd Charisse is clearly wearing a skirt with a pleat at the start of this lovely number with Fred in the 1957 SILK STOCKINGS. But if you look closely during the number it turns into a pair of culottes, presumably to aid the high kicks - but did they think nobody would notice? Maybe they didn't. Cleverly edited though ...

It becomes fairly obvious during the "Fated to be Mated" duet between Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse that Charisse is wearing a skirt one moment and culottes (or flared shorts) the next. The bottom half of her costume changes on each cut of the dance when they are doing deep knee bends, and this is where the culottes show. For the upright spins and lifts, the skirt shows. The dance was obviously performed twice and edited into one sequence.

Belinda as Aphrodite

One of our favourite sites is the great PEPLUM (www.peplumtv.com) where I found this full-version of the 1957 APHRODITE, GODDESS OF LOVE starring British Belinda Lee, a cult favourite of ours here - see the label entries. 

This is a better than average peplum, with some great moments and images, Belinda (1935-1961) was a Rank Organisation starlet who was popular in the 1950s, she also branched out into European cinema - peplums like APHRODITE, MESSALINA, MARIE OF THE ISLES, LUCREZIA BORIGA, that New Wave 1959 French film we like LES DRAGUEURS, the 1960 Italian THE LONG NIGHT OF '43 .... as well as others like SHE WALKS BY NIGHT and GHOSTS OF ROME with Marcello Mastroianni. 

Her English titles include NOR THE MOON BY NIGHT, MIRACLE IN SOHO, DANGEROUS EXILE (which I loved as a kid in 1957), THE BIG MONEY, FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG and she was one of the first BELLES OF ST TRINIANS in 1954. 

Sadly, she was killed in an automobile accident in 1961, aged 25 .... as per my other posts on her. Her husband Rank photographer Cornel Lucas took some great photographs of her. This is her memorial in a cemetry in Rome ....

Christmas treats

TV is awash at the moment with Christmas movies - glutinous, sentimental TV movies - there are even whole channels devoted to them. I ignore all these -we will always want to see IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET or even WHITE CHRISTMAS or MEET ME IN ST LOUIS (not a Christmas movie as such, as it covers all 4 seasons, but it does have that great Christmas song sung by Judy...). There are though one or two movies I discovered that are worth seeing, and starring some of our favourites here at The Projector.

I nominate CHRISTMAS EVE, starring Loretta Young and Trevor Howard, and THE GIFT OF LOVE: A CHRISTMAS STORY with Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury. And for a real movie, Spence and Kate in DESK SET (above) - which has a great long Christmas party scene. Roll them ...

Loretta was the great depression waif back in the 1930s and very prolific - 7 or 8 movies in 1933 alone. I love her in those Pre-Codes like MIDNIGHT MARY or the 1936 LADIES IN LOVE - as per revews at Loretta label. (The later Loretta became an Iron Butterfly and was less interesting). Here she is Amanda, a beautiful old lady in CHRISTMAS EVE, in 1986. Amanda is a wealthy widow at loggerheads with her banker son who is trying to remove her from control of the family firm as she persists in using real money to give to the poor and not tax-deducting it. Then it turns out Amada has a fatal illness [no sniggering at the back Martin Bradley!] with not much time left. When her doctor tells her, her reaction is "Well I never thought I was immortal". 
Her faithful butler is none other than Trevor Howard, also touching and frail here after his hell-raiser days. When she tells him of her condition and how he has to help her, as they go out every night helping the poor and homeless, is perfectly played by the two veterans. She decides to use her remaining time to re-unite her grandchildren with their father and bring the whole family together for Christmas Eve. Does it happen? It may sound gruesomely sentimental but it is anything but in the seasoned hands of veterans like Young and Howard and a good supporting cast. Directed by Stuart Cooper. Howard died 2 years later in 1988, aged 74 Young died aged 87 in 2000. 

Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury are paired again in the 1983 telefilm THE GIFT OF LOVE. (They were previously in THE LONG HOT SUMMER in 1958, and that 1964 Sondheim musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE). 

After experiencing several stressful situations within a short time --including the failure of the family business and the loss of her mother-- Janet Broderick becomes ill. Falling into a deep sleep, she dreams of returning to her hometown, taking her children with her to meet her deceased loved ones. Perhaps, during a Christmas reunion with her beloved family, she will find the answer to coping with her troubles.

This is a glutinously sentimental story mainly in soft focus about a family facing hard times and the intervention perhaps of family ghosts... Lee is wonderfully attractive and fascinating as usual as the disillusioned wife whose mother Angela Lansbury dies after two scenes, but returns as Lee dreams most of the following with a visit to her old family home where mother and father and spinster aunt are all present. Its nicely resolved with her children and husband, and expertly put together by old hand Delbert Mann (MARTY, SEPARATE TABLES etc). It remains a superior telemovie though, we can watch Lee and Angela in anything. 

DESK SET is a pleasure now, as I posted here a year or so ago.. I like it a lot, maybe the best of the Tracy-Hepburns after WOMAN OF THE YEAR, ADAMS RIB, PAT & MIKE .... its from a talky play (by Phoebe and Henry Ephron) and the subject must have been topical back in the 50s - those new big computers coming in taking over office jobs. Like Fox's WOMAN'S WORLD it is also another great New York movie, and Kate and her office girls, led by Joan Blondell, are a great gang. Spence is amusing and droll too as they suspect he (and his new computer) is going to make them all redundant. Theres reams of dialogue, including that nice long scene on the cold office roof, and that one at Kate's apartment - another Apartment We Love - with its cosy fire, chairs and bookshelves. We want to live there!

Gig Young is Kate's on-off boyfriend - a task he previously played for Bette and Joan. There is a great long Christmas scene as the office party gets underway and Kate plays drunk nicely - she and Joan Blondell get nicely tipsy together, and Kate even sings "Night and Day". She is for once given a decent wardrobe of nice dresses and coats and looks great, particularly in that red coat and gloves.. DESK SET, directed by Fox regular Walter Lang, is a pleasure any time, and Leon Shamroy makes it look good. (As I mentioned before, the young Lee Remick was up for the small part played by Dina Merrill, as her first movie role, but she wisely opted for A FACE IN THE CROWD instead, making a sensational debut there). Its a Christmas treat, put it on. 

To Indo-china and Japan via the sea wall ....

I liked the French epic INDOCHINE a couple of years back, nice to see it again now, plus also that 1950s favourite of mine, Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL, also set in colonial Indo-China (exteriors filmed in Thailand in 1957); and also Mikio Naruse's 1954 LOST CHRYSANTHEMUMS was also screened here again, I was captured all over again ...... here are my reviews of these ....

INDOCHINE. This was a free dvd in one of our newspapers a few years ago, but I never bothered watching it till now. I like it a lot, it plays like a French GONE WITH THE WIND or a David Lean film with those crowd scenes and sampans sailing on marvellous landscapes .... as directed in 1992 by Regis Wargnier.

Indochina during the 1930s: One of the largest rubber-tree plantations is owned by French colonist Eliane who lives with her father and her native adopted daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Elaine gets to know young French officer Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez); after a short affair she refuses to see him again, as Camille falls deeply in love with him. Elaine gets him transferred to a far island where Camille goes in search of him, despite an arranged marriage. Her saga is rivetting and engrossing, as the fates of the three leads play out, rather like a parable of France's place in Indochina and Vietnam. It looks marvellous - Deneuve is perfect in those 30s clothes, and striding around her plantation in jodhpurs. Colonial life is nicely depicted showing also the brutality meted out to the peasants (like that family Camille travels with to that island).

It is a vast, panoramic love story set in the twilight years of French Indo-China. Comparisons with David Lean are inevitable, considering director Régis Wargnier's use of the setting as a backdrop to the love-triangle between the three main characters. Catherine Deneuve gives a strong, emotionally restrained performance as Eliane, the plantation owner whose colonial paradise is slowly falling apart. Linh Dan Pham is affecting as Camille, Eliane's adopted daughter whose journey from aristocratic ancestry to Marxist induction personifies the changing face of South-East Asia in the period around World War Two. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Film of 1992, and Deneuve was nominated as Leading Actress.
As I said to pal Martin to encourage him to see it, it is a saga featuring glamorous ladie wearing fabulous 1930s frocks in exotic locations making grand gestures and suffering, suffering, suffering while an epic tale unfolds about France and Indo-China; there's gorgeous men in white uniforms a well and some marvellously composed images. 

Another Fifties favourite I have featured here quite a bit, but not lately, is Rene Clement's 1957 THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE, which I liked as a kid back in 1958.

Above is a nice clip of Tony Perkins and Silvana Mangano doing their jive number.

There is a lot more on THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) at the labels below. I loved it as a kid, and it still works for me now, Silvana Mangano is as fascinating as ever, and Jo Van Fleet of course is extraordinary as always, and Alida Valli picks up Tony at the cinema! It was an early international co-production, French/Italian and shot in Thailand, from the Marguerite Duras novel. Tony of course went from Silvana to Sophia Loren in his next, DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, while Clement stunned and fascinated me with his next - PLEIN SOLEIL .... but thats a whole different story. 

Update: I now have my third copy - the first was Italian only / then a friend sourced a black and white copy in English / last year I got a copy in colour and in English with French Sub-titles, copied from French television - and introduced by Alain Delon ! - he must have been commenting on a Rene Clement season ... perfect viewing then.

LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS from 1954 is rather slow-moving and not much actually happens but Naruse creates this mood where we identify with each of his characters and the Japanese life of the time - all those sliding doors! - is nicely depicted. I have not seen any other films by Naruse or much Japanese cinema apart from the Kurosawa and Ozu classics. I love TOKYO STORY of course and Ozu's fellow classics like LATE SPRING and EARLY SUMMER (featuring the great Setsuko Hara as Noriko) and his earlier THERE WAS A FATHER and THE ONLY SON and his final, AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON. Naruse was equally prolific with 91 titles, the best known seem to be FLOATING CLOUDS and WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS - so, more Naruse to explore, then there is Mizoguchi ...

Mikio Naruse's examination of the lives of three idling, constantly complaining, single ex-geishas in post-war Japan is a marvellous character piece. What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Okin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi  and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamor of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have children, but their children have disappointed them. Okin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment. 

 As in Ozu's TOKYO STORY, sadness and nostalgia permeate LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS particularly when Tomi and Tamae are getting drunk and reflecting on their children busy with their own lives, 
while Okin comforts herself with her home and deaf-mute maid. Everyone it seems wants to borrow money from her ... Haruko Sugimura (also in TOKYO STORY as the thankless daughter) is marvellous as Okin. All the characters accept the stoic acceptance of life and their circumstances. Okin has her money and the others have their memories and companionship to keep them going. The men meanwhile, particularly, Okin's two previous lovers are desperate for money ... 

The Monroe Walk ! 
One fascinating moment has the two ex-geishas walking along when a modern Japanese girl strolls by swaying her hips.Tamae asks "Is that the Monroe walk?" as Tomi imitates it. It made me realise that here in 1954 Monroe was already a worldwide sensation since 1953 and her tour to Korea. 

The Prince and the Showgirl: a 1957 review

There seems to be an impression that THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL was a damp squib back in 1957 and did not get very good reviews and the general view was that the combination of Olivier and Monroe just did not work, it was of course a troubled production - as all Marilyn's later films were.  

"Films and Filming" though gave it an upbeat review, by one Rupert Butler. It is rather nice:

"The coupling of of Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL represents one of the shrewdest gimmicks in show-business: the film was guaranteed maximum curiosity value before one foot of it was shot. I found the combination of these two stars irresistible and salute a brave attempt to inject Ruritanian dash into the rather dreary provincialism of much of British Cinema. 

Terence Rattigan's smoothly carpeted THE SLEEPING PRINCE used one of the oldest themes extant in light romantic comedy - the mildly libertine Royalty who falls in love with a commoner. To the coronation of George V comes the Grand Duke Charles, Regent of Carpathia, a near middle-age stuffshirt whose idea of light relaxation from protocol is a a deux caviare supper with a ravishing George Edwardes showgirl, Elsie Marina. The devastating and indestructible naivety of his victim, however, is something new to the Regent. Getting rid of this embarrassing encumbrance proves harder than he imagines. 

Elsie stays around long enough to melt his heart, ride to the Coronation practically by accident, and patch up a quarrel between the Regent and his young son (Jeremy Spenser).When the couple eventually part they promise to meet again - somewhere, sometime ...

One has become accustomed over the years to a certain amount of filmed theatre - characters' entrances and exits, perfectly natural in a theatre, can appear on screen as artificial  ... and eventually become a trifle monotonous. 

Nothing though can quite affect the quality of the leading performances. Olivier, looking like an upper-crust Heathcliff armed with a monacle, makes the Regent a figure of considerable charm. Only in moments of straight comedy does the character come dangerously near burlesque. The baby-faced Elsie, who knows all the answer and can stride through any situation with a marvellous wide-eyed innocence is tackled with all the customary Monroe zest. Nor is the performance without its moments of pathos. 

In recommending this gay and inconsequential charade I would put in a word for the superb jewel-bedizened Queen Dowager of Sybil Thorndike and about all for Richard Wattis, a perfect personification of affronted Foreign Office dignity,"

Yes, it was good to see Richard Wattis in a strong role for once - he usually popped up for a moment or two in most British films - and it all makes one want to see it once again.  There are other comments on it here, Monroe label - is also fun seeing MM interacting with those British stalwarts like Gladys Henson, Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Vera Day - as Olivier as the Regent demands that Elsie be taken back to Brixton ! I was too young to enjoy it when it opened, but we like seeing it over the years as Jack Cardiff makes Marilyn look her most beautiful here, in that iconic white dress, and Olivier's sly performance is a lot of fun too, and he was directing it as well!