Le cygne

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!

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.

Absolutely completely well done film by the future Princess Grace of Monaco, Grace Kelly and supporting staff including dreamy Louis Jordan, staunch Alec Guiness, and a surprise entry as Queen, Agnes Moorehead.

Each actor worked so well together and yet in each one's style. Complete delight to watch the story unfold, ebb & flow, and then glide just like a swan to a restful ending. A fantastic use of comedy for interjections into a plot line that could easily been bogged down in monarchical dribble.

What an orchestra of a movie. I was put off a bit by the overly flowery love declarations from Jourdan to Kelly, but outside of that, everything was a delight to watch.

What clinched this movie for me is Guiness's description of a swan: gliding and graceful in water, but cumbersome and put off as a goose on land. The need for them to shine forever on the water in order for their beauty to be appreciated. Ahhhh.... wonderful.

Before her marriage to Prince Rainier, Grace Kelly made this next-to-last film for M-G-M, the royalty (though, alas, in somewhat of a decline from its glory days) of Hollywood's studio "system." I thought it, along with "High Society," a graceful exit for the lovely Miss Kelly, and M-G-M surrounded her with thorough professionals both before and behind the CinemaScope cameras. I especially enjoyed Alec Guinness, Jessie Royce Landis, and the wonderful Estelle Winwood, as well as Brian Aherne and Louis Jourdan. It's not available on DVD (and may possibly never be) and, I fear, the VHS version is formatted to fit the full screens of non-widescreen TVs. Too bad...It's a handsome production which, no doubt, won't visually impress very much when diminished by, ugh!, "formatting." What's wrong with "letterboxing," may I ask? Maybe it's the word itself!

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.