Der Prinz von Arkadien

The people have spoken, and the unnamed kingdom is now a republic. Prince Willi Forst thanks his ministers for their failed efforts to educate him, chooses his default title of the Prince of Arkady, and is off to Monaco, where the ex-royals of many nations have gathered, and he has a small island to himself. Making his way there, however, he spots a ring of keys next to an apartment building. He makes his way up, and discovers Liane Haid. He is not whom she has been expecting, and orders him away. However, a thunderstorm rises, and her fear of lightning impels her to ask him to stay the night.

When he finally makes his way to his new home, he is summoned to the court-in-exile of his aunt,ex-princess Hedwig Bleibtreu; there the staff tries to forestall a meeting with a woman who had insulted him, although he has no memory of it. It is, of course, Fraulein Haid.

Forst has a very difficult role in a man who wishes to live a good life with no cares, who seems to care about nothing but uttering soft answers that turn away wrath. Surprisingly, he succeeds, mostly because of Fraulein Held, who also has a difficult role in being charming and strident, and the imperious and annoying royals who, as Tallyerand is thought to have said about the Bourbons, learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.

THe result is a light piece of fluff that seems to cry out for being an operetta, although there are only a couple of songs in it. As the film makers intended, I was charmed.