Her Highness and the Bellboy

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.

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.

Robert Walker plays Jimmy, the nice-guy bellboy from the film's title. He works at a hotel and spends most of his free time hanging out with Leslie, a disabled lady who has some weird disease. According to the Doc, she didn't get enough love as a child and as a result she apparently can't walk!! Sounds like she could use a good psychotherapist! Regardless, through the course of the film Leslie's heart is broken as Jimmy begins to spend less and less time with her and more with a beautiful Princess staying at the hotel (Hedy Lamarr). The Princess likes Jimmy and has asked the manager that he be assigned as her personal aid. However, through the course of the film, Jimmy overhears a conversation and thinks the Princess is in love with him! She IS in love with a commoner...but it sure ain't Jimmy! What's to happen with poor Leslie...and poor Jimmy...and the poor Princess...when she gets arrested?!

Most of this film is very nice, though occasionally the film drops the ball. First, there's the bizarre illness which can only happen in a Hollywood flick! Second, there's a very long and irrelevant dream sequence which just would have been better left out of the movie. Despite these complaints, the film is generally very nice-- sort of like a modern fairy tale and with some nice performances. Well worth seeing even with its flaws.

Hedy Lamarr is a princess in love with a commoner - and Robert Walker thinks he's the commoner - in "Her Highness and the Bellboy," a delightful 1945 movie that costars June Allyson and Rags Ragland.

Walker is one of Hollywood's most tragic stories - a talented actor whose personal problems led to a year-long institutionalization and later, his sudden death shortly after his brilliant work in "Strangers on a Train."

Here, he is energetic, fast-talking, and adorable as Jimmy, a clumsy bellhop assigned to Princess Hedy while she's in New York with her aunt (Agnes Moorhead). Hedy is fantastically beautiful, as always, though her part isn't very showy compared to the others.

June Allyson plays an invalid who lives upstairs from Jimmy and his buddy, played by Rags Ragland. She's very young, pretty, and sweet as a lonely young woman whose life is brightened by the constant entertainment of these two men.

She's in love with Walker, and when he develops a crush on Lamarr, her heart breaks. Lamarr is in love with a columnist, (a wooden Warner Anderson).

This movie seemed on the long side, but it's very warm and entertaining fare. Six years later, Walker will look as if he's aged 20 years. He's a light that went out too soon, and it's nice to remember him at his most vibrant.

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 ****