PRINCESS O'ROURKE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 350, 8 March 1946, Page 18

PRINCESS O'ROURKE

(Warner Bros.)

LMOST everything said above applies also to Princess O’Rourke, except that in this case the anaesthetic is either more effective in itself, or else

is more skilfully administered. At any rate it didn’t arouse quite the sdme degree of critical resistance in me. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed several long parts of the film, Basically the plot is the same; the Cinderella story in reverse, with Olivia de Havilland rather delectably demure as a European princess (though not sufficiently demure to prevent her being photographed in a bathtub), who falls in love with and marries an American pilot (Robert Cummings) during a visit to the U.S. This fairytale is often handled with considerable skill and a neat sense of comedy by the director as well as by the cast, but in between the bright patches there are some pretty dull ones, especially towards the end. Princess O’Rourke has taken a long time (at least three years) to reach the screen, in Wellington anyway. It gives the show away itself in an early scene

(Continued from previous page) where the Princess’ uncle (Charles Coburn), her protector in New York, while running over the list of eligible suitors for her hand from among royalty in exile in London, remarks, ‘"There’s Peter of Yugoslavia, but he’s only 18." So Peter is washed out; and so when the Princess, in rather less improbable circumstances than might be supposed, goes sightseeing with young Pilot O’Rourke and they fall in love, her royal family agrees to the marriage for various high reasons of State. An American alliance will be good for "morale," it will aid the democratic cause, it will bring new blood into the line and almost certainly secure the succession (for the young man is one of nine boys and his father was one of 11). Only there are certain conditions. He must renounce all claim to the throne himself. Agreed. He must renounce personal authority over any children of the marriage. Agreed, rather reluctantly. He must give up his American citizenship. No never, anything but that; that he simply cannot do. Anyway, if he becomes a Prince Consort instead of a fighter pilot how will he be able to face his children when they ask what did you do in the Great War daddy? He’s an American and he’s not going to marry even a princess on those terms. No, the film isn’t being a comedy at this point-at least not intentionally a comedy. And it means itself to be taken seriously, too, in that sequence in the White House, when President Roosevelt (I said it Was an old film) intervenes on behalf of young romance and democracy and sees the marriage through in spite of the royal family. I noticed something at this point that I noticed previously in Mission to Moscow: that apparently it is necessary to represent the President of the U.S. in a Hollywood film in much the same way as the Deity must be represented in a play on the British stage: that is, simply as an unseen Presence; in this case, as a hand opening a door to let Falla, the Presidential dog, out for a run, or as an off-screen figure whom the hero stumbles against and only subsequently recognises. Coming in the midst of a frivolous farce, these sudden solemn hushes are as disconcerting as they are untimely, like being suddenly invited to go down on your knees at a smoke concert.