Her Highness and the Bellboy

One of the best movies I've ever seen - and I've seen thousands. What I was expecting to be an empty but sweet chick flick turned into a really sweet story about appreciating the friends you have around you.

I have to say, this film has to have some of the best performances I've ever seen! Robert Walker is his usual adorable self, but I was greatly surprised and impressed by June Allyson's performance. This is my favorite of hers, as she is just so incredibly sincere and easy to love as Walker's invalid girlfriend, Leslie. Rags Ragland gives a brilliant performance as Albert, the slow, but loving friend.

Hedy Lamarr is of course, lovely, but she and Agnes Moorehead seemed to be totally overshadowed by Walker, Ragland, and Allyson who seem to steal the show right out from under them!

It's really a beautiful movie, that makes you think of who your friends really are.

Some viewers may view this film as just another old-fashioned movie. To me, this was very clean, fresh, and genuinely funny and entertaining film. There are no complicated gimmicks or special effects, but it exemplifies the best traits of human beings; optimism, good humor, romantic love, and the kind of respect that a decent human being would show, in all of their relationships. If anything, it would be nice if we could seriously ponder these values as being worthy, instead of dismissing them, as being old fashion or downright sappy. Hedy was the personification of regal elegance, but with a warm heart; Robert Walker, was very likable and funny; June Allyson, Rags Ragland, were as warmly effective as the two leads. A very positive and sensitive film. Too bad these qualities make this a 'chick flick' in today's world. I know there was a time, when a family could enjoy a movie like this, without feeling weird, because their adrenaline drives were not being satisfied by glorified violence, and a general disrespect for anything decent or human.

Never realized that Robert Walker, "Strangers On A Train", ever played the role as a bellhop named Jimmy Dobson who gets involved with a Princess Veronica played by Hedy Lamarr who was so very beautiful and charming in 1945. Jimmy Dobson escorts Princess Veronica around the hotel and through out New York City and introduces her to Frankfurter's in Central Park. However, the Princess is really looking for a man in New York City after being divorced from another man. June Allyson,(Leslie Odell) is a young sweet charming girl who is bed ridden and is very much in love with Jimmy Dobson and there is a conflict between these two woman. This is a very cute film and the entire cast did a great job in their acting and comedy acts. Enjoy.

It's always a great thrill for me to see a long awaited film for the first time.This is a very hard title to obtain since the movie rights appear to be owned by TCM and they have not seen fit to issue it commercially on video yet.Don't they realise there is a whole army of movie buffs out there wanting to see these films?Certainly it has never even been shown on TCM in the UK to my knowledge.It seems one's only hope is to record it off TCM in the U.S.A. when they choose to transmit it.

I was fortunate in that my extensive American network was able to track down a copy to a dealer in the U.S. who specialises in rare videos.Well to the film!

Robert Walker is very good playing light comedic roles.His timing is good and in the central role of the bellboy he is...well...loveable.Its a similar part he was to play in "One Touch of Venus (1948) with Ava Gardner who he likewise addresses as "your majesty".Its a modern fairy tale where a European princess (the devine Hedy Lamarr), comes to New York to search for her American long lost love and to escape for a time royal protocol and the royal groom the court wants to assign to her.Her real love is a columnist on "The Gazette" who hangs out in a low dive and bar writing his stories for the paper.There is a touch of the plot of "Roman Holiday (1960) with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the storyline of the royal princess socialising and having a romantic relationship with a commoner.Due to a misunderstanding, the bell-boy thinks she loves him instead and he temporarily abandons his crippled girlfreind Leslie (June Allyson) who lives in the flat above his, painting dolls for a living. The main sub plot involves keeping his simple frind Albert from joining the local hoodlums since Albert was once in a boys reformatory and has picked up some rather unsavory company.When the king of Hedy's country dies she becomes Queen and has to return at once to her native country.Being a generous queen she invites the bellboy to come back with her and for one mad moment the bellboy thinks she is in love with him and he might even become king!!.Hedy is courageous and participates in a bar room brawl, even getting arrested by the cops, then giving the other arrested "dames" a valuable diamond-studded cigarette case as a keepsake of the evening.Her American boyfriend is also startled to see her carted off in the police wagon.

Of course, we all knew from the first that the bellboy would end up with Leslie his crippled girl friend whose incapacity the doctor informs us is probably psychosomatic and not a purely physical disability.She just needs love (don't we all!).In a moment of truth Robert Walker sees the light and tactfully declines Hedy's offer of a passage on the boat back to her country.This inspires the new queen to abdicate at once as she wishes to live for love in the U.S. as well and become just a plain Mrs with the man she loves.So of course it all ends happily ever after.

Hedy is of course utterly gorgeous to look at and in her prime.That genuine Viennese accent perfectly convincing us of her central European pedigree.She is attended by a duchess lady in waiting played by Agnes Moorhead who puts on a passable accent.Robert Walker is very effective in the role of the bellboy and his real love, June Allyson, warms to her part and even shows us a little dancing sequence.There is a very imaginative scene where she dreams that she can walk and meets her prince charming who transforms from a frog to a prince in a court presided over by a kingly Albert!I wonder, did Michael Powell get his idea for the dreamlike never ending stairway for "A Matter of Life and Death (1946)from the one shown in this sequence?

Everyone is portrayed in a very sympathetic light so no one goes to bed unhappy.Good old fashioned Hollywood story telling at its best.I rated it 7/10.

Hedy Lamarr plays a foreign princess who travels with her entourage to New York City in the hopes of meeting up again with a former flame who writes a daily newspaper column (and detests royalty!); while staying in a swank hotel, the princess is befriended by a boyish, charming bellhop who develops a crush on her, despite the fact he's also playing big brother/boyfriend to a bed-ridden girl who lives in his walk-up. Very odd romantic comedy seems to lay the character eccentricities on a bit heavily...but once the mechanisms of the plot take hold, the players seem more at home within this scenario, which is jaunty and friendly more than funny. As the bellboy, Robert Walker doesn't seem to know whether to play his role like a grown-up or a klutzy kid--so he does both; he's very ingratiating with his double-takes and exasperated looks (he gives the hotel receptionist a beaut!), and a lengthy scene early on--with Walker reading a fairy tale out loud to his girl, and indeed the neighborhood--is very tricky yet easily pulled off by the actor. Lamarr is less successful; her royal visitor doesn't require a lot of joy or spontaneity, and she isn't reluctant to show her emotions, but still she's an awfully grim beauty, harboring love's disappointments. June Allyson has the strangest role, that of an invalid girl who can walk but chooses not to (?), but she beams like Judy Garland and her smile is a welcome relief after too much of Lamarr's scowling. There's a nice musical dream sequence that seems a little padded, yet the hotel staff, Agnes Moorehead's Countess, and Walker's cohorts are all a very likable bunch. Not a completely successful fantasy, but a well-produced, well-paced one with lots of happiness to go around. *** from ****