Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12444 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-26
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French, Italian
• Subtitled in: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Romanian, Dutch
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Prince and the Showgirl (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.

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.

On the DVD: The Prince and the Showgirl 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 The Sleeping Prince. --Piers Ford

DVD Description
DVD Special Features:
Announcement newsreel: "Marylin Starts a New Deal in Hollywood"
Theatrical Trailer
Screen Ratio: Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: Mono

Synopsis
Laurence Olivier is the Carpathian prince visiting England for the coronation of George V. Marilyn Monroe is Elsie Marina, an American actress doing a musical review at a nearby theater. When an old flame of the prince's turns out to be Elsie's boss at the theater, their paths cross--and Elsie's determined not to let them uncross. After the prince confirms her worst fear--that he's interested only in a quick seduction--she nonetheless finds herself falling for him. As his mother-in-law takes a shine to Elsie, she finds herself attending every official function of the coronation--to the chagrin of the prince and her jealous boss. The crusty prince must decide whether to let love into his duty-bound life, and Elsie must decide if happily-ever-after ever really comes true. Olivier shines in his dour, bumbling straight-man role, while Monroe is at her charming, luminous, naive best.

Customer Reviews

Monroe Acts Olivier Off the Screen
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
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.

Marilyn'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.

It 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.

It is more Gigi than Some Like it Hot, but refreshingly romantic and glamorous and completely unique in Marilyn's oeuvre - well worth the view!

Not great but a good-enough watch
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.