The Princess Comes Across

Carole Lombard and Alison Skipworth are masquerading as a Swedish princess and her lady in waiting who are sailing to Hollywood to make a film. This is a bit of self ballyhoo that chorus girl Lombard from Brooklyn is giving for her film debut. Still band leader Fred MacMurray is intrigued by her.

Of course slimy blackmailer Porter Hall tries a little touch on both MacMurray and Lombard, MacMurray having done a stretch in jail as a juvenile. Later when Hall winds up murdered in Lombard's cabin, MacMurray moves the body and searches for the real killer. His only clue is that Hall had told him he had a third blackmail prospect on board the ship.

Easier said than done because also sailing on the ship are five police detectives from different countries on the way to a convention in California. When Hall's body does turn up, they all want to have a little competition as to who can crack the case first.

Sounds like a serious plot, but in fact it's a pretty breezy comedy with MacMurray and Lombard at their sophisticated best. One thing that was fascinating in the plot was that Mischa Auer and Sig Ruman being from the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are playing detectives from the NKVD and the Gestapo respectively though that's hardly mentioned. Both are without their usual methods of investigation on the American cruise ship as is Tetsuro Komei for the Japanese. British Scotland Yard man Lumsden Hare and Surete detective Douglass Dumbrille round out our quintet of sleuths.

Best in the supporting cast is Hall as the blackmailer though. Also good is George Barbier as the ship's captain and William Frawley who a quarter of a century later would co-star with Fred MacMurray in My Three Sons is MacMurray's agent.

This was the second of four films MacMurray and Lombard did for Paramount in the Thirties. They were a good team together and don't get as much recognition as they should.

Despite the Thirties fashions and music, the film holds up very well today. It's Carole Lombard at her best.

THE PRINCESS COMES ALONG is a comedy/mystery that unfortunately splits itself in the middle rather than being a mix of both genres throughout the film. It stars Carole Lombard as a girl from Brooklyn who while in England somehow manages to persuade film producers that she is a Princess Olga of Sweden, is signed to a contract and on her way to America to make movies. The movie opens with the excited passengers and press eager to see the Princess board the ship (just how this ruse is successfully pulled off strains credibility, Sweden, after all is a major nation, and surely any allegations that a Princess was going to enter pictures would have quickly been denied and disproved).

Fred MacMurray is a popular bandleader who is also on board and takes a shine to the Princess, attempting to romance her. She is indifferent but when a blackmailer is found dead in her room she becomes warmer to MacMurray's offer of friendship as he and buddy William Frawley remove the body. That still means a murder is loose on board and there's more mayhem in the works before the killer is revealed.

This movie starts out an engaging 1930's romantic comedy with Lombard deliciously parodying Garbo as the faux Royal Highness. Alas, the movie literally turns deadly after the murder and it's pretty much a straightforward murder mystery with a surprise that isn't much of a surprise if you've seen movies of this nature. Nevertheless, the cast does very well with the material, particularly the young Fred MacMurray, quite dashing in his late twenties, and the delicious character actress Alison Skipworth, here cast as the Princess' haughty traveling companion but in truth another unemployed actress and of course the always great Lombard. Months after their triumph in MY MAN GODFREY, Lombard is reunited with Mischa Auer with the latter in a small role as the Russian detective, one of several international detectives who just so happen to be all traveling on board. THE PRINCESS COMES ALONG is not one of the better Lombard films but it's a pleasant 90 minutes and worth at least one viewing.

'The Princess Comes Across' was billed as 'a curious blend of comedy, murder-mystery, romance and music'; the 'curious' is certainly without question, but the degree to which the mix blends is, I feel, open to some doubt.

On the whole this is mainly satisfactory from the comedy angle. The sole musical element consists of casting our hero, played by Fred McMurray, as a concertina-player, a choice of instrument guaranteed to provide humour by its plebeian contrast to royalty. McMurray also sings a spoof ode to his concertina at the obligatory onboard musical evening that gathers all the murder suspects together -- save one! -- to stage the climax to the mystery plot. Unfortunately the solution to the latter turns out to be extremely lame, the plot line having been again almost totally subjugated to the need for laughs, and chiefly providing an excuse for the introduction of four stereotyped comedy detectives -- the dapper Frenchman, the pompous Prussian, the pipe-smoking Englishman and the devious Russian -- and an opportunity to implicate Carole Lombard's Swedish princess.

Lombard's haughty impression of the princess who just wants to be left alone is the main selling-point of the film, and the difficulties this role places in the way of romance with her cocky concertina artiste, 'King' Mantell, provide most of the rest of the comedy. Filmed through a gauzy lens, she has perhaps never been more beautiful, and the script handles her predicament with sympathy, but this one gimmick isn't quite enough in the end to carry off the rest of this mish-mash of a film.

Ultimately I felt that it strains at too many different goals and falls short of most of them: its worst actual defect is the hand-waving denouement to the detective plot, which is of a nature to embarrass Agatha Christie at her most contrived, but the climax to the romance also somehow struck me as arbitrary and unsatisfactory, given how hard her character has defended her increasingly impossible situation throughout the rest of the film. Again, I get the feeling that the plot demands of the comic and romantic set-up respectively are pulling in conflicting directions rather than forming a happy blend.

Not a long-lost classic, but a curiosity, perhaps; worth seeing for Lombard's title performance, but ultimately less than a harmonious whole.

This second pairing of Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray packs a lot into 76 minutes. In this, they share time with a handful of famous detectives from around the world who are on board the same ship looking for an escaped killer. The mystery aspect fits in nicely with the otherwise romantic comedy of Lombard and MacMurray. And, other supporting players contribute as well - Alison Skipworth, Porter Hall and George Barbier.

"The Princess Comes Across" is a mixed genre of comedy, a con caper, murder mystery, and romance, with a good dose of music as well. It's almost too much to pack into 76 minutes and expect a film to be outstanding or exceptional, but this superb cast pulls it off nicely for a very good comedy.

Lombard assumes a Greta Garbo role with her Swedish-English accent, playing a fake Princess Olga. And, MacMurray, as King Mantell, uses some of his musical talent singing with a concertina and his band. Much of the humor comes from their sidekicks. Skipworth plays Lady Gertrude, companion of the princess, and William Frawley is Mantell's cohort, Benton.

But, there's crime aboard this ship that's sailing from France to America. And the stars share screen time with a band of international detectives. Those sleuths and other lesser roles are played very well by some of the leading supporting actors of the era. Sig Ruman, Mischa Auer, and others add their own twists of humor as the egotistical "world's greatest detective" that each one considers himself to be.

This film just doesn't have as much snappy dialog, witty script and clever zingers that other films have. But the plot is good and the mystery adds a twist to the usual script of comedy-romance and music for such films of the 1930s. Both stars are exceptionally adept at truly great comedy, and they show some of the range of their acting talents here. Lombard's impersonation as a "Svedish" princess is a hoot and her lines and actions are riotously funny.

Here are some favorite lines from the film. For more dialog, see the Quotes section under this IMDb Web page of the movie.

Chief Purser (Edward Keane), "There are five important police officials aboard, sir." Captain, "Police?" Chief Purser, "They're sailing for an international convention of detectives in New York. Would you like to have them at your table, sir?" Captain, "I don't even want them on my ship. They're troublemakers. Jinxes. I'd rather be followed by a seagull flying upside down. I've seen it happen again and again. Trouble's their business. They love it so much, it follows them around."

Princess Olga, "I'd like to smack that guy in the kisser."

Lady Gertrude, "Now I know he's no good. My dear, I am an old woman. I have traveled at home and abroad. And never, never have I known any good to come out of a concertina."

Princess Olga, "You enjoyed the cocktails, didn't you?" Lady Gertrude, "Oh, the first five or six. After that I was bored."

Benton, "King. I just saw Darcy go into the royal suite." King Mantell, "Yeah? Are you sure it was Darcy?" Benton, "Sure. Rats like that don't come in pairs."

Benton, "Take Terry McGovern. There was a fellow with a left hook. All he had to do was hit you in the chin and break every bone in your ankle."

King Mantell, "If you're ever in any kind of trouble, you can count on me." Princess Olga, "Oh, why do you think I should be in any trouble?" King Mantell, "Oh, I dunno. This is a strange ship, and there are some very odd people aboard." Princess Olga, "Ja, and the oddest of them all is you."

Lady Gertrude, "Thank heaven this day is over. Such a crowd, my dear. I don't mind people stepping on my feet, but I do object to their loitering there."

Lady Gertrude "Oh, my stars and garters."

Benton, "I'm saving this page for your obituary notice. I can see it now. 'King Mantell Gets Himself Bumped Off for a Dame.'"

Princess Olga, "Well, if you really know who the murderer is, why don't you tell them now?" King Mantell, "I would if I knew. The point is I don't." Princess Olga, "Then why did you say you did?" King Mantell, "Because to catch a rat you have to have cheese." Princess Olga, "I don't get it." King Mantell, "I'm the cheese. When the rat comes to nibble, bang goes the trap." Princess Olga, "With the cheese in it." King Mantell, "Not if it's a smart piece of cheese."

Benton, "I'll stick around, all right, but I ain't no Charlie Chan. When I'm picking that guy's sewing kit out of your back, don't say I didn't tell you, that's all."

Benton, "I don't know why you want to trade your concertina for a harp."

The main reason to see this fun, if slowly paced, comedy-mystery is to see a glowing Carole Lombard do an hilarious impersonation of Greta Garbo. She plays an American actress pretending to be a Swedish princess - and Carole has a ball sending up Garbo in the process. Also great to get a glimpse of pre-WW2 politics, with the detectives on board coming from all over the globe - including Germany, Russia and Japan. Great fun. What a shame we don't all travel by boat still!