The Princess Comes Across

'The Princess Comes Across' was billed as 'a curious blend of comedy, murder-mystery, romance and music'; the 'curious' is certainly without question, but the degree to which the mix blends is, I feel, open to some doubt.

On the whole this is mainly satisfactory from the comedy angle. The sole musical element consists of casting our hero, played by Fred McMurray, as a concertina-player, a choice of instrument guaranteed to provide humour by its plebeian contrast to royalty. McMurray also sings a spoof ode to his concertina at the obligatory onboard musical evening that gathers all the murder suspects together -- save one! -- to stage the climax to the mystery plot. Unfortunately the solution to the latter turns out to be extremely lame, the plot line having been again almost totally subjugated to the need for laughs, and chiefly providing an excuse for the introduction of four stereotyped comedy detectives -- the dapper Frenchman, the pompous Prussian, the pipe-smoking Englishman and the devious Russian -- and an opportunity to implicate Carole Lombard's Swedish princess.

Lombard's haughty impression of the princess who just wants to be left alone is the main selling-point of the film, and the difficulties this role places in the way of romance with her cocky concertina artiste, 'King' Mantell, provide most of the rest of the comedy. Filmed through a gauzy lens, she has perhaps never been more beautiful, and the script handles her predicament with sympathy, but this one gimmick isn't quite enough in the end to carry off the rest of this mish-mash of a film.

Ultimately I felt that it strains at too many different goals and falls short of most of them: its worst actual defect is the hand-waving denouement to the detective plot, which is of a nature to embarrass Agatha Christie at her most contrived, but the climax to the romance also somehow struck me as arbitrary and unsatisfactory, given how hard her character has defended her increasingly impossible situation throughout the rest of the film. Again, I get the feeling that the plot demands of the comic and romantic set-up respectively are pulling in conflicting directions rather than forming a happy blend.

Not a long-lost classic, but a curiosity, perhaps; worth seeing for Lombard's title performance, but ultimately less than a harmonious whole.

The plot of this movie seems rather crazy. After all, Carole Lombard plays an American who can't get a job in Hollywood, so she pretends to be a Swedish princess (sort of like a royal version of Garbo) and is adored--and offered a film contract. Now you'd think this is a totally ridiculous idea, but in real life just a year later, Samuel Goldwyn introduced a Norwegian sensation--Sigrid Gurie. Unfortunately, when it was found out that Gurie was born in Brooklyn (exactly like Lombard's character), it didn't exactly help her film career! Now you'd think that having Lombard playing a rather broad Garbo impersonation would be silly, but because she was such a likable actress and it's such a cute film, they manage to carry it off well.

The film begins with Lombard coming aboard an ocean liner with a lot of hubbub from the press--after all, they think a princess is on her way to America. Once aboard, band leader Fred MacMurray falls for her and pursues her. However, unexpectedly, the comedy becomes a murder mystery--and both MacMurray and Lombard are suspects. However, MacMurray also knows that she was the victim of a blackmailer who was just murdered--and he knows she has something to hide. There's much more to the film than this, but you can just see it yourself--it's worth it.

Overall, the film works well because the writing is very good and the actors have nice supporting character actors on hand--such as William Frawley, Douglas Dumbrille and Sig Ruman. Plus, the ever slimy Porter Hall made for a great blackmailer. Clever and most enjoyable from start to finish.

Oh, and I must point out that this film allows the viewer to hear MacMurray Crooning! His voice, though a tad weak, was actually far better than I expected and was rather reminiscent of the singing of Dick Powell.

Carole Lombard and Alison Skipworth are masquerading as a Swedish princess and her lady in waiting who are sailing to Hollywood to make a film. This is a bit of self ballyhoo that chorus girl Lombard from Brooklyn is giving for her film debut. Still band leader Fred MacMurray is intrigued by her.

Of course slimy blackmailer Porter Hall tries a little touch on both MacMurray and Lombard, MacMurray having done a stretch in jail as a juvenile. Later when Hall winds up murdered in Lombard's cabin, MacMurray moves the body and searches for the real killer. His only clue is that Hall had told him he had a third blackmail prospect on board the ship.

Easier said than done because also sailing on the ship are five police detectives from different countries on the way to a convention in California. When Hall's body does turn up, they all want to have a little competition as to who can crack the case first.

Sounds like a serious plot, but in fact it's a pretty breezy comedy with MacMurray and Lombard at their sophisticated best. One thing that was fascinating in the plot was that Mischa Auer and Sig Ruman being from the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are playing detectives from the NKVD and the Gestapo respectively though that's hardly mentioned. Both are without their usual methods of investigation on the American cruise ship as is Tetsuro Komei for the Japanese. British Scotland Yard man Lumsden Hare and Surete detective Douglass Dumbrille round out our quintet of sleuths.

Best in the supporting cast is Hall as the blackmailer though. Also good is George Barbier as the ship's captain and William Frawley who a quarter of a century later would co-star with Fred MacMurray in My Three Sons is MacMurray's agent.

This was the second of four films MacMurray and Lombard did for Paramount in the Thirties. They were a good team together and don't get as much recognition as they should.

Despite the Thirties fashions and music, the film holds up very well today. It's Carole Lombard at her best.

... very shortly before all three of these nations would become troublesome for the US and the rest of the world for that matter.

It's a combination comedy/romance/drama/mystery/musical film set aboard a ship that is headed from Europe to America that could have easily been too busy and thus incoherent, and yet it works.

Carole Lombard is the Swedish Princess Olga and Allison Skipworth is her companion/lady-in-waiting as Olga travels to America for an acting career with Transatlantic Studios. Except she's not. She's a Brooklyn chorus girl who is pretending to be a princess, because the studio wasn't interested in her as just another American aspiring actress, but as a princess she got their attention and a contract. Lombard does a great Greta Garbo imitation throughout, and it's thus funny when she lapses into her Brooklyn accent when frustrated or she forgets herself. Fred McMurray plays King Mantell, a successful bandleader and concertina player who wants to romance the princess, but she is (initially) having none of it, because to let someone get too close might disclose her ruse. McMurray is paired with William Frawley as his manager, decades before they are teamed again on "My Three Sons".

A blackmailer (Porter Hall) tries to shake down both Mantell and the princess. At the same time the ship's captain (George Barbier) receives a cable announcing that there is an escaped French convict on board. Plain sailing this isn't. Luckily there is a group of detectives on board who are heading for a conference. They are Douglass Dumbrille representing France, Lumsden Hare representing the U. K., Sig Ruman representing Germany, Mischa Auer representing the Soviet Union and Tetsu Komai representing Japan. There are several jokes about crime and punishment in the Soviet Union surrounding the Russian detective, but nobody says anything about Germany or Japan because they are not seen as a threat yet. It is near the end of a rare period of peace in the world during the 20th century. The vacation of these gentlemen is interrupted when two murders are committed.

It is a wonderful contrivance in script-writing as to how all aspects of this multi-faceted film gel together relatively seamlessly. One moment William Frawley makes another one of his funny down to earth statements, then we go straight over to downright skullduggery and high drama. In the midst of it all Fred MacMurray, who was quite an accomplished musician, gives us a song in the middle of the picture.

I'd say that this busy and engaging film is definitely worth your time.

The main reason to see this fun, if slowly paced, comedy-mystery is to see a glowing Carole Lombard do an hilarious impersonation of Greta Garbo. She plays an American actress pretending to be a Swedish princess - and Carole has a ball sending up Garbo in the process. Also great to get a glimpse of pre-WW2 politics, with the detectives on board coming from all over the globe - including Germany, Russia and Japan. Great fun. What a shame we don't all travel by boat still!