The Ambassador's Daughter

The screenplay is quite derivative and obviously inspired by "Roman Holiday" ; but what is really glowing is Olivia De Havilland's love for France ; the great actress spent years and years in Paris and the country had become her second homeland where she died in 2020,a centenarian..

This trite story is full of joie de vivre : it opens with the old march from the Sun King's reign "Auprès De Ma Blonde " (which is sung by boy scouts on the Eiffel Tower afterwards) , the dialog is full of French lines , the songs include Maurice chevalier's "Valentine "and De Havilland and her co-star Forsythe dance to Charles Trénet 's "l'âme des poètes" ;there's even a night at the opera where they attend "the Swan lake" ballet with danseuse-étoile Claude Bessy .And the young GI loses his wallet in the "blue Pigalle "(ooh la la!)

And they wanted to deprive the enlisted men of the gai paris ? Of les Folies Bergères and Le Lido ? Of the Parisian models the GIs compare to caviar .

It goes without saying that it's not Miss de Havilland 's best and not even among her best ,but she was a wonderful guide for the Americans of yore ( nowadays, they come to Europa en masse ,but in the fifties ,for most of them it was only a dream to see Paris ),in the times before the General de Gaulle withdrew his country from NATO .

The ending is totally implausible ,but call it Olivia's Parisian holiday ;after all the great movies she made with Curtiz, Huston, Fleming (of course!) ,Leisen ,Wyler ,et al ,she did deserve it.

This was a very entertaining film from 1956 with some great veteran actors who have had great roles in their careers and this is a rather silly film which seems to go on and on. However, this is a comedy concerning an American Ambassador's Daughter named Joan Fisk, (Olivia De Havilland) who live in France and meets up with a soldier named Danny, (John Forsythe) and Joan is modeling various dresses for an American Red Cross Benefit and Danny becomes very attracted to Joan. Joan does not tell Danny she is the daughter of an American Ambassador and pretends to be a French girl who is a professional model. There are wonderful actors in this film, namely, Myrna Loy, (Mrs. Cartwright); Adolphe Menou, (Sen. Jonathan Cartwright) and Tommy Noonan, (Cpl. Al O'Connor all gave outstanding supporting roles. If you like old time comedy films, this is the film for you.

De Havilland made this movie when she was 40 when the role demanded someone about half that age, After all, she was supposed to be appealing to a young soldier stationed in Europe after WW II.

Then, there was the problem of miscasting John Forsythe, who was a handsome sophisticated man of 38 at the time, not a young gullible GI capable of being manipulated into the comedic situation of this movie.

Even as a young boy, I found John Forsythe to be too sophisticated for the TV sitcom, Bachelor Father where he was Kelly's womanizing uncle rather than anything that resembled a father figure to me. Forsythe seems to have found a home on TV in roles like To Rome with Love, Charlie's Angels, and especially, Dynasty. It always seemed to me that he was born handsome and sophisticated.

This movie did bring together some old actors from Hollywood's Golden Age: Myrna Loy and Adolphe Menjou (as a couple???) and Edward Arnold as the American Ambassador and father of de Havilland.

In the final analysis, this movie, made in Paris during the mid 50s, seemed more like a series of fashion shows in search of a situation comedy.

THE AMBASSADOR'S DAUGHTER is a generally well made film with a great cast. The story and direction though are uninspired and workman-like and robs the story of any vitality. In more capable hands, this film would have been a charmer but the producers were clearly aiming for average. It just doesn't sparkle as it should be and because the pacing or tone, which should have been lightning fast and sharp for this kind of story, is lackadaisical, this big studio production feels and looks exactly like an episode of THREE'S COMPANY. One that takes place in Paris.

The great thing about this movie is Myrna Loy. Whenever she's on screen the movie comes alive. Loy, who starred in the great THIN MAN movies, has a knack for delivering light and funny dialogue and her timing here is perfect. She easily eclipses the whole cast, which includes Olivia De Havilland, John Forsythe, Adolphe Menjou, Tommy Noonan! Thank god Myrna was in this film or else it would have been totally forgettable. Well, the location shooting was also great.

All in all, I enjoyed watching THE AMBASSADOR'S DAUGHTER for what it was but it could have been much better, a classic in fact. Now it's just average.

It is certainly not true that because a film has as its central character a female protagonist that it must be a "woman's picture". But in an era when the novel market in cheap-minded fiction seems hopelessly divided between mindless male violent thrillers and mindless female Gothic romanciful fantasies, the viewer must expect this debate to spill over into films. Fortunately for moviegoers, as late as the 1950s, films such as "The Ambassador's Daughter" were still being made and these were films with enough realistic characters, intelligent dialogue and interesting action to please adult viewers. This is a very fine script indeed by veteran writer-director Norman Krasna. It was directed very ably and beautifully mounted. The noteworthy cast included Edward Arnold, Myrna Loy, Adolph Menjou, Frances Lederer, Tommy Noonan plus Olivia de Havilland and John Forsythe as the romantic leads. The setting is postwar Paris, and the sets are beautiful to behold. This is a film about upper crust folk; and as such we are treated to costumes by Christian Dior, impeccable lighting and gorgeous art direction. But the fact that these are members of the wealthy set does not stop the scriptwriters from devising lively and challenging involvements for all. The very good idea for the story involves de Havvilland trying to prove to her ambassador father, professionally and personally worried about such matters, that all French-based American soldiers are not "wolves". She picks on Forsythe to prove her point--and discovers she may have picked too well for her own safety, since she finds herself falling for the shy G.I. Arnold and Loy are particularly good, Menjou is his usual charming self; and de Havilland is superb. Only Forsythe seems a bit low-voltage, as he sometimes did early in his career, before "The Trouble With Harry". The film's technical elements, such as lighting, sets, art direction and all else provide the usual first-rate MGM realization. The color is lovely as well, adding to the gemlike quality of this underrated and very intelligent comedy. In an era devoted to Medieval character flaws, misbehaviors and irresponsible folk floundering in a sea of surrealistic bad writing and worse thinking, this earlier work stands out as a cinematic delight, one to be watched many times over.