Royal romance movies on TCM: The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, Royal Wedding
As a William & Kate tie-in, Turner Classic Movies is showing several royal romances, weddings, escapades, and heartbreaks on April 29. Whether or not you – like the countless hacks in the U.S. media – give a damn about the assorted goings-on inside the British royal house (or facsimile elsewhere), TCM’s royal romance movies are well worth checking out.
Starring Jane Powell, Fred Astaire, and Peter Lawford, Stanley Donen’s Royal Wedding (1951) has as its highlight Fred Astaire dancing on walls and ceilings, a sequence that is far more enchanting than the bit in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page walk on the “walls” of a folding Paris in Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
William Wyler romantic comedy-drama Roman Holiday (1953), from a story by blacklistee Dalton Trumbo, earned Audrey Hepburn a Best Actress Oscar for being pretty and charming. That same year, also in the running were Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, Ava Gardner in Mogambo, and Leslie Caron in Lili.
The best performance in Roman Holiday is Gregory Peck’s as the American journalist who steals the runaway princess’ heart.
The moderately entertaining The Glass Slipper (1955) – which deserves a full-fledged restoration – stars Leslie Caron as a French-accented and, as her romantic interest, Michael Wilding in tights, while Charles Vidor’s The Swan (1956) is a majestic-looking big-screen adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s play. Grace Kelly, who had her own royal wedding that same year, stars as the physically elegant but emotionally ungainly title character: A princess in love with Louis Jourdan but bound to marry scene-stealer Alec Guinness.
Easily the best movie of the bunch, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) stars Mexican Ramon Novarro and Canadian Norma Shearer as Central Europeans living an intense but doomed romance: He’s a college-attending prince, she’s the local barmaid.
Novarro, though plastered with some unflattering white powder, delivers a nuanced, deeply affecting performance. Shearer, for her part, is utterly fresh and natural. A lovely characterization.
Lastly, someone at TCM should take the initiative to present Novarro’s 1928 star vehicle Forbidden Hours, even if that’s a poor man’s The Student Prince rip-off but with a happy ending. Renée Adorée steals the show as the commoner.
Note: There’s no royal romance in Murder on a Bridle Path, but nosey Helen Broderick makes it well worth one’s while, crowns and scepters or no.
Royal romance movies: TCM schedule (EDT)
8:00 PM Royal Wedding (1951)
Director: Stanley Donen.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, Keenan Wynn, Albert Sharpe.
93m10:00 PM Roman Holiday (1953)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams, Margaret Rawlings, Tullio Carminati, Paolo Carlini, Claudio Ermelli, Alfredo Rizzo.
118m12:15 AM The Glass Slipper (1955)
Director: Charles Walters.
Cast: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn, Estelle Winwood.
94m2:00 AM The Swan (1956)
Director: Charles Vidor.
Cast: Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Jessie Royce Landis, Agnes Moorehead.
108m4:00 AM The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch.
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt.
106m6:00 AM Murder on a Bridle Path (1936)
Directors: William Hamilton & Edward Killy.
Cast: Helen Broderick, James Gleason, Louise Latimer.
67m