Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1956 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 26 April 1956. U.S. release: 27 April 1956. U.K. release: 21 May 1956. Australian release: 18 April 1956 (sic). 9,719 feet. 108 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Hungary, 1910. Determined that her daughter shall become a queen, Princess Beatrix makes agitated preparations when she learns that Crown Prince Albert intends to visit her castle. But Albert is bored and indifferent, Princess Alexandra cold and nervous. The long-awaited visit turns into a gloomy failure.NOTES: Third film version of the Molnar play. Frances Howard played the title role opposite Adolphe Menjou's Albert and Ricardo Cortez's tutor in Dimitri Buchowetzki's 1925 release for Paramount. In the 1930 sound re-make, Lillian Gish played Alexandra, Rod La Rocque was Albert, whilst Conrad Nagel played Dr Nicholas. The screenplay written by Melville Baker himself, was directed by Paul L. Stein. The sets were co-designed by William Cameron Menzies. A United Artists release, this talkie was entitled One Romantic Night. Although High Society was released later, this was Grace Kelly's final Hollywood film. She became the real-life Princess of Monaco on 18 April 1956. M-G-M revived this Molnar play to cash in on the publicity.COMMENT: Who would think M-G-M capable of producing a movie of such taste, elegance, wit and sophistication? Evidently producer Schary, assuming that the movie would be a box-office winner no matter what, decided to let his creative team aim a great deal higher than the studio norm. "The Swan" emerges as a delightful comedy of manners, directed with unobtrusive style and vitality, superbly set and winningly photographed (impossible to detect where Ruttenberg ends and Surtees begins), and for which Kaper has contributed one of his most appealingly melodic scores. It's hard to credit that not a single one of these artists were so much as nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award.Of course "The Swan" is a trifle — but what a dish when served up by brilliant players like these! It's the superlative acting here that makes all the difference between shallow pointlessness and rapier wit. Each character in this wonderful cast is fascinatingly individualized. Timing and pacing from the whole ensemble is just right. Jessie Royce Landis has a couple of excellent foils in Estelle Winwood and surprisingly Brian Aherne (who here for once is perfectly cast).Of course for most people, the movie's exciting cast starts and ends with Grace Kelly. She is absolutely radiant, her very hesitancy and immaturity as an actress being cleverly exploited and utilized for stunning dramatic effects by director Charles Vidor. The scene in which she gradually melts while waltzing with Jourdan (an equally charming performer, in my opinion) is masterfully orchestrated, edited and directed.

sheilahcraft The Swan is a magnificently beautiful film in every way--sets, costumes, dancing and music, dialogue, and the actors. Of course Grace Kelly is noted for her blonde regal beauty. Louis Jourdan is the most gorgeous man to ever grace film. The two together, Grace and Louis, are almost too much to watch. They are stunning together.Their characters, Princess Alexandra and Dr. Nicholas Agi, are just as lovely to watch. From the beginning, Dr. Agi's love for the Princess is clearly evident, and as her attraction to him develops, the audience hopes for the romance to culminate in a romantic Royal Wedding. Alas, that does not happen. Alexandra cannot bring herself to follow her heart and to succumb to love for Nicholas. Instead, after the most enchanting waltz, he realizes the truth and prepares to depart the palace the following morning. Does she merely pity him, as he claims, or does she love him but reject him because he is a tutor and not of royal birth? Or is it that Nicholas is Alexandra's first romance and she realizes it will never last? For whatever reason, Nicholas rides out of her life, leaving her heartbroken yet awaiting future happiness.It takes Alexandra's uncle, the Father Carl Hyacinth (Brian Aherne), to provide the insights and truths that guide Alexandra into letting Nicholas go. Carl realizes his niece's inexperienced youth, and assures her that true love will find her in due course. Of course, we are left at the end to wonder of that comes in the form of the (forced) marriage to her cousin Prince Albert (Alec Guinness). We must each answer that question for ourselves.

bkoganbing In one of those life imitates art situations Grace Kelly gave her farewell performance on the big screen playing a princess. She left the screen to become a princess, Princess Grace of Monaco. No Hollywood scriptwriter could come up with that.I wish she had left after High Society though. The Swan is a rather old fashioned drama set in 1910 with a royal family of some Ruritanian principality finding themselves in a financial bind. Jessie Royce- Landis and her three kids, Grace Kelly, Christopher Cook, and Van Dyke Parks will have to live in reduced circumstances and have to give up among other things, the royal tutor Louis Jourdan. That is unless mom can get visiting cousin Prince Alec Guinness interested in a royal match with Princess Grace. But when he arrives he's essentially quite indifferent to her. Which gets Jourdan's goat because he's crushing out big time.This kind of work without the accompanying publicity of Grace Kelly's real life wedding to Prince Rainer probably would have died at the box office. It's a story way too old fashioned for 1956 tastes let alone now. The choices that this family is forced to make would be imposed on most of royal Europe by the end of the decade, forced on people holding much bigger titles than this family has.No one set foot in Europe as this was shot in a recreated castle in North Carolina by the Vanderbilt family. Since that time the location has been used for several films. It certainly is one fine replica.In a recent biography of Alec Guinness it is reported that Guinness who got along with his co-stars did not with director Charles Vidor. It certainly didn't affect his performance. Guinness was a brilliant player but a strangely neurotic man who had a lot of issues.Grace Kelly did not end her acting career on a high note with The Swan. More like a middle C.

eschetic-2 Molnar's stately examination of romance and duty, THE SWAN, made a slightly disappointing "swan song" for Grace Kelly in Hollywood (it and the delightful PHILADELPHIA STORY remake, HIGH SOCIETY with Cole Porter songs, marked her final two studio films before marrying Prince Rainier of Monaco who she met at a photo shoot at the Cannes Film Festival following her filming Alfred Hitchcock's TO CATCH A THIEF in his principality on the Mediterranean - near the borders of France and Italy). The disappointment today is less in the undeniably beautiful film itself than the undeserved reputation for "emptiness" and misconceptions which have grown up around it and served to limit the film's showings and the knowledge of Princess Grace's actual legacy.Even in 1956, the popular taste was shifting to faster paced entertainments with more emphasis on car chases and adventure than language and communication. Ferenc Molnar's original 1923 play (he was also responsible for the 1921 LILIOM which became Rodgers & Hammerstein's CAROUSEL, filmed the same year as THE SWAN) was from a quieter age between the Wars when the popular taste was willing to look within the provinces of mythical royalty for its universal stories of human relationships. It seemed talky to a 1956 audience who saw the trappings of a long passed royalty and stopped listening to the very real emotions and honor at the heart of the story. Who wanted to care about the problems of a girl who happened to be living in luxury - and worse, was being torn between the love of two essentially good men? That failure to care - or care to listen - was the audience's loss (and the studio's - it was obviously a very expensive film), for the problems under examination were hardly trivial and the final scene between Alec Guinness and Princess Grace was as moving and true as any that could have been crafted from more earthy elements. Audiences today who care to listen to what literate people are actually saying rather than wallow in explosions and contrived "action" plots will find much to appreciate.I said the film also perpetuated myths about its star. Seeing Princess Grace in this sumptuously costumed and technically undemanding setting, it's easy to believe she was the "little Philadelphia girl" given the Hollywood treatment and polished there into a "star," but Grace Kelly was far from the a Hollywood naif. She came from one of the wealthiest families in Philadelphia, and a not unconnected one theatrically. Her uncle, George Kelly, was a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who probably inspired Grace's theatrical ambitions.Before finding an all too brief position in the Hollywood pantheon, Kelly graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and polished her craft in at least two productions on Broadway, winning a Theatre World Award for her first, a 1949 production of August Strindberg's THE FATHER! In his book "Darling, You Were Wonderful," press agent Harvey Sabinson, who worked on that production, tells of the dedication and generosity of the young actress who he didn't know at the time was so well connected (and when he learned, was not permitted to capitalize upon).While the ending of her story (the far too early death in a car accident at 51 notwithstanding) may be one of seeming fairy tale romance, the true story of Grace Kelly the actress is one of natural ability rewarded through careful preparation and hard work - a tale not unlike the quietly inspiring plot of THE SWAN.