The Prince and the Showgirl
Short description
Set in London in 1911, around the coronation of King George V, this comedy follows Elsie, an American showgirl performing in a cabaret. Among the foreign dignitaries in the city is the Regent of a small Central European kingdom, who attends a performance and becomes interested in her. He invites her to dinner at his embassy, but the evening does not go as he plans, and the encounter leaves both of them surprised by what develops between them. Terence Rattigan wrote the screenplay, drawing on his own stage play.
Laurence Olivier directed and produced the film and plays the Regent opposite Marilyn Monroe as Elsie. It was his third turn as director, after Hamlet and Richard III, and the supporting cast includes Sybil Thorndike, Richard Wattis, Jeremy Spenser and David Horne. The production was a British and American co-production between Warner Bros. Pictures and Marilyn Monroe Productions.
The film runs 115 minutes. On IMDb it holds a critics' rating of 5.6 out of 10 from 10 reviews, while on TMDB it has a rating of 6.4 out of 10 from 203 votes, so audiences there rate it somewhat more favourably than the critics do.
What's left behind the scenes
- Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) once learned that someone from the crew or cast had organized a pool and was taking bets on the number of takes she would need for a particularly difficult scene. Monroe suspected Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) and got her revenge. The actress memorized the scene perfectly, so she came to the set fully prepared. Monroe performed the scene, walked off and closed the door behind her as the script required, then immediately reopened it, stuck her head out and said, "Well, how was that? Not bad, huh?" – before leaving. This line was not in the script; it was intended, of course, for the skeptics, but the phrase fit the end of the scene so well that they decided not to cut it.
- The only film with Marilyn Monroe shot outside of the United States.
- It was during the making of this film that the events unfolded as depicted in Simon Curtis's biographical film "7 Days and Nights with Marilyn" (2011), starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, and Kenneth Branagh.
- The relationship between Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier during filming was strained. Olivier was constantly angry with the actress for forgetting her lines or being late to the set. Monroe once simply flared up when Olivier advised her to "just be seductive."
- Around the 40th minute of the film, Marilyn Monroe mistakenly calls Charles, Laurence Olivier's character, by the actor's name, saying: "Laurence, darling, good night."
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
