Pretty Good

Dreadfully Boring

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

IMDb reviews are not infallible, but they are usually reasonably reliable. Not so in this case. This movie is a combination of two popular contemporary themes, the princess who is mistaken for a commoner (or vice versa) and the hasty wartime marriage. Both are treated much better in every such movie I can think of. The themes have lost their appeal and relevance, and what we are left with is a very dull movie with a lame script and boring actors. Numerous reviews say this film is not just humorous but hilarious. I didn't laugh once. Didn't even smile.Olivia de Havilland, of course, I exempt from the "boring" category. As ever she is sweet, charming, endearing, and thoroughly delightful. But opposite her is a blank space called Bob Cummings, who is superficial and puerile. How could anyone think that a character far less intelligent and educated than she could be a good match? His moment of trying to be masterful with de Havilland makes him look childishly bad-tempered, and the scene in which he struggles with correct terminology makes it embarrassingly obvious how dumb he is. It is also embarrassing that, for much of the movie, de Havilland is led to believe that, while she was unconscious, he undressed her and saw her naked. This is not funny--it is leering and distasteful. It is also out of character for de Havilland to become friendly, then romantic with someone who would do this. There are other foolishly unrealistic bits for the sake of a laugh--when she gets out of bed, for instance, wearing Cummings's pajamas, she nearly trips, as she has on pj's that look big enough for someone eight feet tall.It's also bizarre that de Havilland, desperate to sleep, takes five sleeping pills. Later she is unknowingly given two more. For heaven's sake, who doesn't know that taking several sleeping pills means you risk not waking up at all? Certainly not someone as sensible and educated as she is.The other main male part is filled by Charles Coburn. When given amusing lines and when there is not too much of him, as in Heaven Can Wait or The Lady Eve, he can be amusingly rakish or crooked. Here, as the soul of propriety, and with nothing funny to say, he is just a boring blowhard--and hardly easy on the eye. Gladys Cooper is insulted by the role given her--this eminent and distinguished lady has only a few lines to say, none of them at all interesting.On the plus side, the movie has Jack Carson and Jane Wyman (each very appealing, they make a very cute couple). But their parts are also too small and pretty feeble. And Jane Wyman isn't herself yet. I kept wondering when she was going to put in an appearance before I realised she was the actress with the long, blonde curly hair. Very disconcerting.It's hard to get a dog wrong, but the makers of this movie could not even manage a nice Scotch terrier to impersonate President Roosevelt's dog, Fala. This one has very prominent teeth, and in closeups he looks rather alarming. I wouldn't trust him around my ankles.While some flag-waving propaganda is understandable in a wartime movie, the filmmakers go too far when they present Bob Cummings with this "dilemma": He can marry a doll like Olivia de Havilland and have £150,000 spending money a year (think what that would be today!) if he gives up his American citizenship. I wonder how many men in the audience would immediately and vehemently turn that down!I originally was drawn to this movie because I thought it was based on the Damon Runyon story of the same title, about a female hack driver and her horse named Goldberg. THAT is a really good story, it is really funny (I laughed out loud at the end), and a smaller and more profitable investment of your time than this piece of junk.

Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Executive producer: Jack L. Warner. Copyright 23 October 1943 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. A Warner Bros.-First National picture. A Hal B. Wallis production. New York opening at the Strand: 5 November 1943. U.S. release: 23 October 1943. Australian release: 11 October 1945 (sic). 8,659 feet. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Brash American pilot woos European princess.NOTES: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award to Norman Krasna for Best Original Screenplay (defeating Dudley Nichols' Air Force, Noel Coward's In Which We Serve, Lillian Hellman's The North Star, and Allan Scott's So Proudly We Hail).COMMENT: Although Bosley Crowther gave "Princess O'Rourke" a marvelously enthusiastic write-up in The New York Times (the film was a runner-up for his "Ten Best" of the year), and although Norman Krasna defeated unusually stiff competition to carry off the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, it is not a movie all that fondly remembered today. In fact it hasn't been aired for at least 40 years on my local television, though it's certainly a far more agreeable comedy than most of the junk that nowadays passes for hilarity. Lightweight it definitely is, but Krasna displays an appropriately light touch, drawing pleasant performances from his large and distinguished cast. Photography is most attractive, and art direction superb."Princess O'Rourke" may not be exactly Royal Command Performance material, but it's a most enjoyable way to spend an idle 96 minutes.

There is something pathetic about how World War II hurt the institution of monarchy throughout Europe (and nearly Japan as well). In Western Europe most of the monarchs fled the onslaught of the Nazi Blitzkrieg, the most notable exceptions being the rulers of Denmark and Belgium. But it is instructive to remember what happened to them. The King of Denmarck remained defiant of the Nazis (if basically powerless) and even (to his immortal glory) purposely wore a Jewish star on his royal tunic when the Nazis began imposing their anti-Semitic policies on the Danish Jewish population. On the other hand, King Leopold III of Belgium did not show a finer spirit (though he always insisted he did the right thing). Leopold willingly surrendered to the Germans and cooperated with them. His reason for this was to protect his people. This (of course) did not include the Jewish population in Belgium. After the war the Allies were not very happy with Leopold (as they were with the Danish King). Neither were the Belgians, most of whom compared Leopold's cowardice (their view) with his father Albert's heroic defense of Belgium in World War I, that made King Albert one of the great heroes of his time. In 1951, Leopold had to abdicate in favor of his son Bauduin I. Leopold died in 1973, never recovering any popularity with his people.Eastern Europe was similar, some monarchs proving heroic even to the point of death. King Boris of Bulgaria had to make a devil's pact with the Nazis in the face of Soviet aggression. But he refused to agree with the transportation of Jews (Bulgaria's population agreed with Boris - 90 percent of the Jewish population of Bulgaria survived World War II, the highest in all Europe among occupied countries). In 1943 he again refused, and died in some sudden, unexpected way while flying home from a meeting with Hitler. To this day poison or some other odd murder devise (depressurizing the cabin of Boris's plane has been suggested) may have killed him. The nation threw out the Coburg family as royal family when the Russians set up their puppet Communist regime. But when the Communists were finally overturned, the Coburgs were welcomed back. The monarchy wasn't restored, but the current head of the house was elected Prime Minister for awhile.Most of those monarchs who fled settled in England or the U.S. or Canada for the duration. The only one who was able to return to his throne during the war was Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, as the British kicked the Italians out of that country. After the war the luckiest of the monarchs was Hirohito of Japan. Although there is still controversy about how deeply involved in the aggressions of the 1930s and 1940s he was (the title of one study, THE IMPERIAL CONSPIRACY, tells that suspicion), he was smart enough to know when to throw in the towel in the face of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was able to show to General Douglas MacArthur that he could be a damned good constitutional monarch. That's why Japan still has a royal family.Only a handful of movies deal with the flight of the royals to Allied (but non-Communist) lands. The most notable ones are WHERE'S THERE HOPE, wherein Bob Hope is an unknown heir to a Balkan throne who has to be protected by Signe Hasso, and this film, PRINCESS O'ROURKE. Written by Norman Krasna (the screenplay won him an Oscar), it tells of how one of the heirs to the throne of an invaded kingdom (Olivia De Haviland) is mistaken for a maid by an American Air Force pilot (Bob Cummings), and how he and she slowly fall in love. The comedy works here as the story is built to show the so-called superiority of the equality of Americans (at least Caucasian, Christian Americans) over old world aristocrats and out-of-date monarchies. There are some lovely bits in it. Charles Coburn plays De Haviland's uncle, a crusty old snob. But while initially opposed to the union, he begins changing his mind when he realizes that Cummings comes from a family of breeders (he has five brothers, and his father had seven, or some such set of numbers). Smiling and acting like he is considering purchasing a brood mare for breeding purposes, he keeps repeating those figures like they are a mantra. It is only when Cummings refuses the idea of his kids losing their American character and citizenship that Coburn's harsher snobbery returns.The film is famous also for the appearance (in his only movie role) of F.D.R.'s "little dog Fala" as himself. The final sequences in the film were filmed at the White House (actually quite an achievement for any studio in wartime). The best moment is at the end, when Cummings upon leaving with his bride after a secret White House marriage tips an "aide" watching at the door. We never see the face of the aide in question, but I imagine afterward he roared with laughter while having a cigarette and possibly one of his own martinis.

Norman Krasna wrote a delightful script that is played to the hilt by Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings, Jane Wyman and Jack Carson--not to mention Charles Coburn. Interesting to note that de Havilland and Wyman would be up for Best Actress Oscars three years later (To Each His Own, The Yearling). Wyman was so impressive as Jack Carson's wise-cracking wife that Billy Wilder decided to use her for 'The Lost Weekend' in a more dramatic role. De Havilland's sleeping pill scene early on gets the film off to a breezy start--she even lapses into a little French (long before she became a Parisian in real life). All in all, she does a wonderful job as the Princess in love with commoner (Robert Cummings)and facing a few twists and turns of plot before the ending. John Huston, her boyfriend at the time, was said to have coached her in the role. Jack Carson and Jane Wyman have good supporting roles--and Charles Coburn has some amusing scenes as de Havilland's overprotective uncle. Ten years later, 'Roman Holiday' gave us another variation on this theme. One of de Havilland's better comedy roles.