Der Schwan

Swans are beautiful, elegant creatures. So who better to portray the human embodiment of a swan than the beautiful, elegant Grace Kelly? Our story unfolds in 1910 with Kelly playing young Princess Alexandra, a minor royal in some fictional European nation. Her family's fortune has faded and her mother desperately desires for Alexandra to marry the heir to the throne, Prince Albert, and thus restore her family to the throne they lost. Prince Albert is Alexandra's cousin but don't mind that because marrying your cousin was quite the royal thing to do at the time. As it turns out Albert is a bit of an odd duck. He has rejected many potential brides and now he has come to call on Alexandra to see if perhaps she is the one. But the prince's social awkwardness sinks this romance before it ever starts. Alexandra isn't exactly warm and loving either, a bit of an ice princess. As the would-be romance founders Alexandra's desperate mother hatches a plot.

The mother urges her daughter to show an interest in Nicholas, who tutors Alexandra's younger brothers. Nicholas is a nice enough guy, but a commoner, certainly not a real romantic possibility for a princess. He is just to be used to hopefully make Prince Albert jealous. But Nicholas doesn't know this. He's been carrying a torch for Alexandra all along and now he thinks he's got his big chance. Complications ensue, suffice to say things don't really go according to plan for anyone involved. At least here the drama picks up a bit, prior to this the film had been a little bit flat and mundane. While there are some decent comedic moments sprinkled throughout there aren't nearly enough laughs to make the film work as a comedy. So for the film to succeed the story has to really grab you. The drama has to be compelling and for much of the film it is really not. Kelly is terrific in a role which suits her perfectly. And Alec Guinness is reliably excellent in playing Prince Albert. But just as the romance between their two characters never sparks to life so too does the movie lack a certain energy. A reasonably engaging, enjoyable film but it leaves you wanting more. The film's somewhat surprising conclusion is a bit of a letdown as well. At least that ending provides an explanation for why Alexandra is thought of as a swan. The comparison between the beautiful bird and the beautiful woman works well. The movie as a whole does not work nearly as perfectly. A great vehicle for the lovely Kelly, with some good work from Guinness and Louis Jourdan, playing the tutor, as well. But the excellent performers could have done so much more had they had a more engrossing story to work with. Kelly is so good, and so radiant, that it is worth seeing the film for her alone. You're just left wishing the film had a little bit more to offer.

The summer of 1955 Grace Kelly read love letters from her real-life prince while sitting on the terrace of the Biltmore Estate in Ashville, N.C., waiting for the cameras to be set up for exterior shots of "The Swan." I saw the film for the first time in 1958 at the 25-cent movies for University of Illinois students in Champaign-Urbana. I thought my date that night looked like Louis Jourdan, the tutor who dared to love a princess. I watched the videotape of "The Swan" just before visiting the Biltmore Estate the summer of 1998. I looked for the rooms in "The Swan." They are studio sets.

Delightful, witty screenplay. A collection of perfectly constructed moments of awkwardness, beautifully photographed by Ruttenberg and Surtees (who did Oklahoma, The Graduate and Last Time i Saw Paris between them) and perfectly shot by Charles Vidor. A fun performance by Alec Guinness as Prince Albert who visits Grace Kelly's princess on a tour of all the princesses in the country, in search of a wife. Louis Jordan, as the young professor, contender for the princess's affections, is very good and looks like a young Colin Firth.

Grace Kelly looks lovelier than ever, and is quite excellent in the role of her life - the role she played for the statesmen of Hollywood. She was just a little girl from Philadelphia who looked like a princess, so they asked her to learn to speak like a princess. And she did. They sent her tapes of elegant speech, and gave her tuition in elegance - and she played the part perfectly. The fun, flirtatious girl she was remained hidden from the public by the press, who in those days co-operated with the Hollywood political establishment. For all the public knew, Grace Kelly was merely a beautiful, elegant woman who played herself on screen. This was not the case. Like Humphrey Bogart, she was not originally like her on screen persona, but like Cary Grant, she eventually became it - through outside circumstance, when she was proposed to by Prince Rainier of Monaco, who met her on a publicity stunt visit. Here, Grace took the elegant persona of Dial M for Murder and Rear Window a step further, anticipating what it would be like to be an actual princess. In less than a year she would know from personal experience, but in The Swan she predicts the feeling perfectly, coming off looking completely genuine. She depicts the confusion of the princess beautifully, the awkwardness and uncertainty despite best intentions. She reveals her feelings at once in the "box him on the ears" speech beautifully - watch her eyes. Such a tender, genuine moment.

Interesting to note that The Swan's screenplay writer/adapter, John Dighton, also co-wrote the screenplay for "Roman Holiday", since one can logically assume that MGM's decision to film Molnar's play "The Swan" was inspired by the success of the earlier film; the similarities are obvious.

"Swan" must be regarded as one of the great DIALOGUE films of the '50's; the exchanges between all of the characters are continually witty and engaging, and the cast clearly relished the opportunity to perform such beautifully written material.

The direction is fine and, except for a few slow patches, keeps the action and dialogue moving at a rapid clip. The performances are uniformly solid, with Alec Guiness in top form as the bemused, distracted and somewhat shallow Crown Prince Alexander; a more deft and perfectly controlled performance could not be imagined.

Jessie Royce Landis also excels in a typically thankless sort of role, and a major one at that. In fact, the expert performances are clearly the result of the high level of STAGE experience of Guiness, Landis, and Brian Aherne (as the aristocrat-turned-monk Karl), among others. You almost feel that you are watching Molnar's original play in a filmed version, so fascinating is the chamber-like, character-driven nature of the dialogue and action.

The scene near the end where Alec Guiness convinces his mad-cap Queen/mother (Agnes Moorehead) to unknowingly give her blessing to the romance between Grace Kelly and Louis Jordan is but one of the many delightful, dazzlingly-delivered dialogue scenes.

Oddly, I found Grace Kelly's much-heralded performance to lack a certain amount of intensity; her screen presence rarely seems particularly commanding; this may be due to the essentially reticent nature of her character. However, she definitely seemed to "catch fire"--in all of her understated, regal beauty---during her lengthy waltz scene with Louis Jordan. One really senses the awakening of her deepest emotions, even though she only occasionally glances at her partner. And then goofy Alec Guiness decides to go play the double-bass in the court orchestra instead of romancing Grace. I laughed out loud.

My reaction at the end of the film was rather unexpected, given what I knew of the "Roman Holiday-style" ending. In that film, I was heart- broken during Gregory Peck's long, lonely final walk. But here---due entirely to the very real, conflicted nature of all three principal characters, I felt that Grace Kelly's choice may have been, in fact, the better one. It's difficult to know, human nature being a rather complex thing. And therein lies much of the brilliance of this film.

Bronislau Kaper's score is also delightful, and beautifully captures the musical idiom of the era and its locale, the "swan song" as it were of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose faded glory would become extinct less than a decade later.

A FILM THAT SHOULD BE FAR BETTER KNOWN AND ACCLAIMED THAN IT IS.

LR

Alec Guinness and Grace Kelly and Louis Jourdan make a beautiful trio.

A very beautiful of Princess Alexandra who's to be married with the Crown Prince Albert, and instead falls inlove with the charming,handsome Tutor/Professor Nicholas Agi(Louis Jourdan). There's one choice she has to make: either let down the throne to marry the Professor or to restore the lost throne with the Prince. A good, funny beautiful movie, Two thumbs up!