FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: The Prince And The Showgirl [DVD] [1957]

The Prince And The Showgirl [DVD] [1957]
enlarge	Director: Laurence Olivier Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Richard Wattis, Jeremy Spenser Studio: Warner Home Video Category: DVD List Price: ~~£13.99~~ Buy New: £2.07 as of 21/11/2009 20:21 GMT details You Save: £11.92 (85%) New (21) Used (4) from £1.99 Seller: brrwarenhuis Rating: 7 reviews Sales Rank: 19875 Format: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen Languages: Italian (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Arabic (Subtitled), Romanian (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Italian (Original Language) Rating: Parental Guidance Region: 2 Discs: 1 Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 112 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.6 x 0.6 EAN: 7321900111546 ASIN: B0000695IS Theatrical Release Date: June 13, 1957 Release Date: August 26, 2002 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review IThe Prince and the Showgirl/I (1957) was Marilyn Monroe's only British-made film and scores highly for curiosity value. There's something rather outrageous about this iconic American star playing a second-rate hoofer living in a theatrical boarding house in Brixton. Monroe herself is predictably good and touching as Elsie Marina, plucked from the chorus to entertain the Regent of Carpathia for the evening and ultimately smoothing his rough edges. There is, however, a rather uphill feeling all the way. p The making of the movie was by all accounts a troubled experience for everybody concerned. Monroe, increasingly unreliable and exasperating, had an unsympathetic director in Laurence Olivier, also playing the Regent Charles, who hardly had the patience for a star of her mercurial talents with her own ideas of professional behaviour. His own performance as the Balkan royal is hammy and mannered and there isn't even a damp squib of sexual chemistry between them. Terence Rattigan's script, based on his successful play, is far too wordy and stage-bound. But somehow Monroe effervesces through all this adversity, aided considerably by British character actor Richard Wattis and the great Sybil Thorndyke, who became her ally during the difficult filming. Not vintage Marilyn but fascinating all the same, and she looks fantastic. p BOn the DVD:/B IThe Prince and the Showgirl/I is presented in 4:3 with an occasionally muffled, apparently mono, soundtrack, giving this DVD a rather dusty quality which is in keeping with the vintage British 1950s production values. Extras include a cast list, original trailer and newsreel footage of the announcement that Marilyn was to make the film with Olivier, referred to at that stage as IThe Sleeping Prince/I. --IPiers Ford/I

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 1 2 Next » Monroe Acts Olivier Off the Screen January 6, 2008 David Rush (Glasgow, Scotland) 14 out of 14 found this review helpful This film was a particular highlight in Marilyn Monroe's career. It was the first - and unfortunately, only - film made by her production company Marilyn Monroe Productions and was also the first time she had made a film abroad. The film is set in London and Monroe stars opposite the great Laurence Olivier - who also directed the film - in one of her best comic roles. She plays a chorus girl named Elsie Marina who is spotted one night by the Prince Regent of Carpathia who is in London on political business. Monroe sparkles as ever and outshines Olivier in a genuinely adorable and funny performance. She plays up her "dumb blonde" image for most of the film, but towards the end the audience is completely assured of her intelligence and how she may have been judged unfairly by the chauvinistic Prince Regent. The film was nominated for five BAFTAs and is an underrated classic. Excellent period piece and a different side to Marilyn May 23, 2002 14 out of 19 found this review helpful The Prince The Showgirl is usually dismissed as a somewhat unremarkable piece of Marilyn's work, and certainly of Olivier's, but this is too shallow a reading of a what is a really quite sophisticated piece. The play is by Terence Rattigan - that most English of playwrights - and the theme is distinctly My Fair Lady or Pygmalion. The plot and the presentation is deliberately stagey, and the set and design are camp and lavish beyond words - a decorator's film to be sure. But there is more, much more. pMarilyn's sophisticated comic talent dominates the film completely, making Oliver work hard to bring his wooden character to life. She sparkles as always, but with such detail in her performance, and as usual, such naturalness that it all seems too easy. Consequently some see a performance they call effortless and slight - but who else could make you believe in the wide-eyed wonder of the little starlet so completely that her emotional bewilderment in the middle of George V's Coronation in Westminster Abbey is totally involving and credible. Every little touch and look is beautifully observed and for those who admire her purely physical attributes - her ass should have won an Oscar for this one alone, as she wiggles and bends so seductively that that Edwardian obsession with sexual suggestion comes completely up to the present.pIt is refreshing to see Marilyn in a period setting with beautiful clothes and jewels a plenty, and there are jokes a plenty too - of the Oscar Wilde, Drawing Room comedy sort - Sibyl Thorndike makes a splendidly dotty Dowager Queen to boot. Marilyn's character dominates the plot and proves again that in a chauvinist and class dominated world the beautiful woman can sometimes wield the real power if she knows how to. It is the perfect portrayal of her apparent childlike simplicity masking that wise human understanding -that is the essence if Marilyn's screen persona. Her character is far from dumb, and her fearlessness in the face of grandeur and snobbery is quietly heroic.pIt is more Gigi than Some Like it Hot, but refreshingly romantic and glamorous and completely unique in Marilyn's oeuvre - well worth the view! Entertaining February 19, 2009 J. E. Holmes (Wales) 0 out of 1 found this review helpful this slight but entertaining oeuvre is a must watch, if only to see Olivier being acted off the screen by Monroe! A feast for the eyes - and very funny. July 11, 2009 pfvll (UK) I cannot believe how wide of the mark are so many of the reviews for this highly entertaining and funny movie. I have watched it several times over the years, still watch it occasionally and am amazed that it continues to entertain and amuse - it just refuses to date. br / br /The funny, sparkling script by Terence Rattigan is leavened with the yeast of telling social commentary, as relevant today as it is to the Edwardian setting. It is full of perceptive one-liners that still make us chuckle. The basic story of how a street-wise, but romantic young girl not only survives, but succeeds in the rarified class-conscious world of royalty and ossified convention is one that enchants us and has us rooting for her. br / br /Visually, it is a feast of riotous colour - stunning interiors, beautiful women in gorgeous dresses and men in either impressive uniforms or the masculine elegance of Edwardian menswear. What's not to like? Jack Cardiff, the cinematographer, yet again demonstrates his unique painterly skill as the finest Technicolor camaraman ever. He displays Marilyn Monroe's beauty better than any other cinematographer has ever done. br / br /The comments that Olivier's acting is "wooden" and that Monroe acts him off the screen are just ridiculous. Olivier is an actor, for heaven's sake, and is playing a Balkan prince of no charm and sombre character. The first five minutes alone - where he thanks the line of actors - is memorably funny with Olivier's subtle interpretation of a bored royal's public relations ritual. He brilliantly contrasts the prince's distant, embarrassed, response to forward yoicks to his attempts at flirtatious conversation with attractive young and not-so-young women. And the carriage scene, in which his ferocious demeanour melts into a wintry smile at the young, impressionable girl's evident excited enjoyment of the occasion is Olivier at his best. Watch his impeccable timing as he delivers his comic lines - it looks just so easy and natural, until we try to do it ourselves! Superb acting. This film also demonstrates that he was an excellent director, as good as any. The pacing, the characterisation, the way in which the story is played out to us, the precise timing of the many comic situation set-pieces, show directorial skills of the highest order. br / br /Anyone who believes that Monroe could not act should be made to watch this movie. She clearly demonstrates here that she was a naturally talented actress with a particular skill for comedy. Unfortunately, in her personal life she was surrounded by hangers-on, some of whom had only their own interests at heart, and some who were plain nutters. Between them they destroyed her self-confidence and suppressed her own natural talent. Here, with first-class, sympathetic direction from Olivier, she was permitted to shine and show what she could do. She was no puppet, however. Her facial expressions and body language, throughout the film, display natural acting talent of a high order, far beyond anything that could be achieved by blind responses to a directorial Svengali. Watch her, for instance, during the Coronation scene, as the rituals of an Old World society begin to impress her New World instincts. The stories that Olivier was driven to the edge by her frustrating behaviour during shooting only emphasises more strongly his directorial talents - nothing of this shows in the movie we see. br / br /One comment from another reviewer that I cannot disagree with is the attraction of the "Monroe ass", though personally, I would simply prefer to say that never has the archetypal Edwardian bottom been more provocatively wiggled or more attractively presented in a knock-out design of a dress. br / br /Watch out for excellent supporting performances from two British stage stalwarts: Sybil Thorndike as a delightfully dotty Balkan Dowager Queen and a wonderful characterisation of a, perhaps, not-so-stuffy man from the Foreign Office by Richard Wattis. Skilled actors like these make us believe in the worlds created by the stars and are a delight to watch. br / br /Some movies are made not as great art, but just to entertain. That it does, brilliantly well. Sit back, enjoy and best of all, laugh. Not great but a good-enough watch September 20, 2001 8 out of 16 found this review helpful Marilyn as usual shines in her very feminine way, and Laurence Olivier portrays a very strong, domineering royal. The acting is good on each side, unfortunately the story is not so great. Pretty predictable and while Monroe/Olivier fans will like this for obvious reasons, it does become a little tiresome about halfway through. Not bad, but nothing particularly special about it. Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 1 2 Next »

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