Thirty Day Princess

I've always loved Sylvia Sidney. I started going to the movies the year her last leading lady performance (LOVE FROM A STRANGER) was made, but I didn't see it then and it was only in revivals in the 1950s and occasional showings of some of her 1930s films on TV that I discovered her. I was amazed at how good she was even when only 21 or 22 years of age, and I thought she was just about the prettiest actress in the world at the time. Problem is, time didn't treat that prettiness too well, and when you saw her after the age of, say, 45 or so, it was hard to see even a trace of that prettiness. No problem, though, for she was a great actress and, I think with proper allowances in casting, she might today be one of the true legends of Hollywood's 1930s era. Well, we'll just have to settle for talent. I'm writing this, though, to say that one is never too old to learn. Although Sidney could be hilariously tough and ballsy in her later years, I had not known she had ever made even one comedy in her starring Hollywood years. And now, after 70-plus years of rather intense movie watching, I have finally seen THIRTY DAY PRINCESS, with a performance by her that is all charm and fun and light and prettiness personified. I can't imagine anyone, not even Colbert or Lombard or Stanwyck, could have done it any better. Truly, I have had her so associated with tragedy and poverty and murder and all the other good things of Hollywood Melodramatic Life, that I kept expecting someone to stab her or toss her down a flight of stairs, but nobody ever did. So, I learned that Sylvia could do comedy at a time when just about nobody would let her, and I am a better-informed movie-lover for it today. As for the film itself, she and Cary Grant and Edward Arnold give it exactly what it needs, and it should be far better known today than it is. She was a wonderful actress and, lest I forget to say it one more time, so damned pretty - not beautiful, just so damned pretty.

A witty romantic comedy about a newspaper man and a princess - no, not ROMAN HOLIDAY, something just as classy and if you're more a 30s movie fan than a 50s movie fan, like me you might find this better.

This is not one of those awful cute and sickly sugar coated Ruritanean comedies which were common in the thirties. Surprisingly it's a smart, cleverly written grown up fun film. I'm not saying it's a biting political or social satire - no, it's a silly, silly story but it's one of those really well made films which still work today.

Every time you find a film directed by Paramount's unsung genius Mr Marion Gering, you find a near perfect piece of entertainment. He wasn't quite top table maybe because he didn't have a particular discernible style but he never failed to make near masterpieces - like this.

In the hands a lesser director this could have been utter tripe. After all: 1. The story is absurd but Gering makes it utterly compelling. 2. Cary Grant's output at this time was hardly notable but he's as good as he ever was in this. 3. You initially think that Claudette Colbert should have been the princess rather than miserable Sylvia Sidney but Gering turns her into the perfect comedy actress.

You might think that this sounds very familiar and that you've seen this type of thing a dozen times before. But don't dismiss this, it's not just another 'also ran.' In terms of writing, acting and production and definitely in terms of humour, this is a cut above the rest. We're not quite at IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT levels but we're pretty close.......and more entertaining than ROMAN HOLIDAY.

The film opens with banker Richard Gresham (Edward Arnold) meeting King Anatol XII (Henry Stephenson) in a mud bath in the king's European country of Taronia. The king mentions that he'd love to be able to give his people some modern conveniences that Americans take for granted, but that the country is too poor. The banker says he could float fifty million dollars in bonds, but that it would require a good will tour by the royalty of Taronia. The king mentions that when kings leave their country they are often not allowed to return, and suggests that his daughter Catterina (Sylvia Sidney) do the good will tour in his place.

When the princess reaches America she comes down with the mumps and must be quarantined for a month. So Gresham scours New York City for a look alike for the princess and finds her in impoverished struggling actress Nancy Lane (also Sylvia Sidney of course), who will be paid ten thousand dollars for pulling off the impersonation. Complications ensue, not the least of which is that high minded newspaper publisher Porter Madison III (Cary Grant) has a running beef with Gresham and thinks that this bond business must be shady dealings AND Gresham thus instructs stand in Nancy Lane to "vamp" him.

Cary Grant is finding his lane in comedy at this point, and it is refreshing to see Sylvia Sidney do comedy after watching her play the tragic figure in so many films. There's lots here that is pure Great Depression or at least pure pre WWII Europe- Gresham as unscrupulous capitalist, an automat turkey dinner turning ordinary people into thieves because they are starving, fast talking reporters willing to believe and do anything to get a leg up on a story, and tiny European countries that nobody has ever heard of that sound like they exist in a snow globe. And then there is Vince Barnett who steals the show as a Taronian count who is a completely unappealing man in just about every way possible.

And then there is Grant's character Porter Madison III. Madison may sound high minded, but in the end he changes his mind about the bond issue because he falls for the big sad eyes of "the princess", not because he is convinced that the investment is fundamentally sound. So Gresham does have his number in that regard.

This one doesn't have any individual great one liners like a Lubitsch, but the situations are charming, and it is an enjoyable watch with no real villains, or at least effective ones, in sight.

"Thirty Day Princess" can easily fit into the oeuvre of master comedy writer Preston Sturges although this film predates his 1940 directorial debut by six years. The basic comic premise of one woman impersonating two very different people on opposite ends of the social scale (while convincing the man she's romantically involved with that they are different people) is difficult material to bring off. Within that context Sturges inserts his unique satiric sensibilities on sex and social mores.

Sylvia Sydney, like Barbara Stanwyck seven years later in Sturges' wildly successful "The Lady Eve," succeeds admirably in using accent and mannerisms to distinguish the two characters. Additionall, both talented actresses have the chameleon-like ability to actually look different in both roles without resorting to any major make-up changes. Unfortunately, Cary Grant, at this stage of his career, had not as yet developed his screen persona to a degree that he could capture as much of the Sturges zaniness that Henry Fonda did in the 1941 film.

While Sidney is portraying two completely different people in "Thirty Day Princes," the audience in "The Lady Eve" knows that Barbara Stanwyck's character is essentially playing two different facets of her own personality. so the similarities in her two roles are dramatically plausible. Although it is highly improbable that Sidney's characters, Nancy Lane and Princess Catterina, could look so much alike under ordinary circumstances, Sturges inserts a sly bit of covert sexual innuendo at the film's climax with a subtle dialogue exchange between Nancy and King Anatole suggesting that she possibly is the King's illegitimate daughter, illegitimately sired during a previous trip to America. Sturges was a master at getting questionable material like this discreetly past the censors of his day.

Stealing the show, however, is character actor Vince Barnett, usually assigned to play low level gangsters and bumbling waiters, as Catterina's obnoxiously infantile fiancé, Prince Nicholeus. He delivers a hilarious performance, alternating accents from Mittel-English Ruritanian to Brooklynese. Considering Sturgis' loyalty to eccentric character actors during his heyday at Paramount, it seems unusual that he would not have written additional roles for Barnett in his series of screwball comedies in the early 40's as Barnett did occasionally turn up in Paramount films like Bob Hope's 1942 MY FAVORITE BLONDE.

Sylvia Sidney stars with Cary Grant in Thirty Day Princess, a 1934 film directed by Marion Gering with a script by Preston Sturges and others. The movie also features Edward Arnold and Henry Stephenson.

Arnold plays Richard Gresham, a banker who wants to float a $50 million loan to the small country of Taronia, but in order to have the public look favorably upon it, he wants the King's daughter, Princess Catterina (Sidney), to do a tour of the United States, talk about her country, and get the press to like her. Unfortunately, when Catterina arrives, she comes down with the mumps and will be out of commission for a month. Gresham launches a search for a lookalike and eventually hires a poverty-stricken actress, Nancy Lane (Sidney) for the role. At her first reception, Nancy meets Gresham's nemesis, newspaper publisher Porter Madison III, who is against the loan. Do I have to tell you what happens? Right, he and Nancy fall for one another.

Very cute, light comedy with this unusual romantic and dual role for Sidney, who for some reason played poor women a lot. My generation knew Sidney as an older and old woman, and Sidney was one who didn't seem to fool around with plastic surgery. Her distinctive smoker's voice and her wonderful acting lifted many a TV show. Here, in some scenes, she actually reminds me of Gene Tierney! She looks lovely and wears the princess' gowns beautifully.

Sidney plays well with the handsome (and also very young) Grant, who was her costar in Madam Butterfly. Grant's iconic persona was not yet developed; for a time, he had the usual leading man roles. He acquits himself beautifully. Entertainment Weekly named him the #7 greatest film star of all time. To me, he was, and always will be, #1. Few actors had the longevity of popularity and good taste in roles and films he chose to do, and no one had his style.

Very enjoyable film, and great to see these stars so young and fresh.