Marilyn From The 22nd Row

The general misconception is that Sir Laurence Olivier “hired” Marilyn to star alongside him in Terrance Rattigan’s play The Sleeping Prince. Actually, the part of Elsie Marina had been suggested as a potential role for Marilyn in 1954 by Hugh French, her agent at the time; and Charles Feldman, who produced The Seven Year Itch, attempted to purchase the drawing room comedy as a vehicle for Marilyn.

In February of 1956, Marilyn intercepted Rattigan during his trip from London and obtained the movie rights during a bar room meeting in Manhattan. She hoped Sir Laurence Olivier would play the Carpathian prince and she also hoped that associating herself with the most acclaimed stage actor in the world would afford her, not necessarily similar acclaim, but some additional respectability. Olivier would agree to appear in the movie if and only if Laurence Olivier Productions co-produced along with Marilyn Monroe Productions and he was hired to direct the movie. Over the objections of Lee Strasberg, who considered Sir Laurence a poor choice to direct because of the thespian’s aversion to method acting, all the involved men, women and children agreed to make a movie featuring the world’s greatest and most famous movie star and the world’s greatest and most famous stage actor at Pinewood Studios outside London. Warner Brothers agreed to distribute the movie and to capitalize on Marilyn’s fame and her persona, Jack Warner suggested a title change. So The Sleeping Prince became The Prince and the Showgirl. So, for all intents and purposes, then, Marilyn hired Sir Laurence Olivier, not the other way around.

What amounts to a nineteenth century drawing room comedy, filmed in nineteen fifty-six England, is not the type of movie in which you expect to see Marilyn Monroe, more suited to Laurence Olivier and the other stage actors who appear alongside her in what is essentially a play. Yet, Marilyn’s performance as Elsie Marina, along with Dame Sybil Thorndike’s humorous portrayal of the willful Dowager Queen, are the highlights of a movie that rambles a bit, is slightly too long; and for contemporary audiences, will not provide enough titillation in the form of overt sex, noisy automobile chases and gunfights, machete slashing or loud explosions. In fact, the movie is absent those things. A direct reference to a wardrobe malfunction early in the movie that actually occurred, when Marilyn met Olivier and Rattigan in Manhattan, is as close to overt sex as the movie gets. O … and the dialogue isn’t constantly peppered with four-letter words or other forms of sentence enhancers. It’s doubtful that a contemporary audience will appreciate the swirling beauty of the large dance scene during the coronation ball or the touching and humorous love story based on reversing the roles of the prince and sleeping beauty.

Elsie Marina is not a dumb blonde: she speaks German, is educated in the ways of princes and other playboys, understands that young men need the understanding and approbation of their fathers and has the uncanny ability to mediate a tense political crisis while falling in love with a stiff Baltic dude who is nearly twice her age. Charles, the Regent of Carpathia, widower and father, is emotionally asleep and Elsie recognizes as much. She sets out to awaken him, not his libido―that is very much awake―she sets out to awaken his heart. Ultimately, she succeeds and they promise to reunite when Charles’ son is crowned king eighteen months hence; but the bitter sweet ending suggests that a reunion, complete with love and marriage, will probably never happen even though it is obvious that each and every member of the Royal Family has succumbed to Elsie’s charms.

Olivier received then, and receives now, some harsh criticism for his affected portrayal of Charles, but I don’t agree totally with that criticism. It appears to me that his interpretation of the character is this: like Olivier himself, Charles is a decent man portraying a man who needs to be tough and angry and slightly aloof; at least Charles believes as much. So Olivier’s characterization is mostly an external presentation of exaggerated gesture and speech. Thus he renders the Baltic Aristocratic as a humorous German-like caricature, seemingly aware at all times that a camera, and an audience, is, and will be, watching him. And yet he still has some fine moments in the movie. During the carriage ride to the coronation, for instance, when his attitude toward the ebullient Elsie begins to change, Olivier’s controlled change from a stern expression to an affectionate, accepting smile indicates Charles’ reluctance to succumb, to accept this commoner, and yet his inability to resist her. He is also very good in the scene during which he explains to Elsie how he really sees himself and feels about his role as Crown Prince of Carpathia. In those moments the Prince drops, along with Olivier, all the affectations of his role as Regent, the angry and aloof man.

Beautifully photographed by Marilyn’s favorite cinematographer, the legendary Jack Cardiff, she is her usual incandescent self, bubbly and effervescent, as light and refreshing as a peach. In a few scenes, particularly the coronation ceremony and the coronation ball, she is almost angelic; and in the scene during which Charles is occupied on the telephone while Elsie entertains herself with chicken salad, caviar and champagne, Marilyn is childlike, nothing less than a glass of Dom Pérignon, nothing less than amazing. Marilyn’s performance, when compared to Olivier’s, is more natural and unaffected, partly because of the differences between the characters, of course; but also because Marilyn’s search for a real Elsie is more internalized, based on her experiences with powerful men, based on the truth as she knew it. No surprise that she was awarded both the French and the Italian Academy Awards for her portrayal of the amazing Elsie Marina. The US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ignored The Prince and the Showgirl, the first movie produced by Marilyn Monroe Productions.

Joshua Logan, who directed Marilyn in Bus Stop, remarked that pairing Olivier with Marilyn amounted to the most exciting idea since black and white; and if Olivier had only listened to Joshua’s advice, and warnings, along with Lee Strasberg’s, on the best way to direct Marilyn, The Prince and the Showgirl, as grand as it is, could have been even grander. The reasons why Sir Laurence decided not to heed the advice offered by Josh and Lee are not known. That is to say, I do not know his reasons. Lee Strasberg advised Olivier not to approach Marilyn from a purely technical aspect but from an emotional one: simply reveal the emotional response you want and get out of her way. Apparently that was beyond the grasp of Sir Laurence.

Marilyn was addicted to method acting, an esoteric approach to characterization that Olivier neither appreciated nor understood. Marilyn needed to understand her character’s motivation and feelings. All Olivier wanted was parroting of memorized lines. Once again, Marilyn had a director who wanted her to be robotic and enact commands. Her stubborn willfulness pushed him toward the edge. Additionally, he was constantly upstaged by her; so his enormous ego also interfered: he just could not handle the untrained movie star’s naturally dimming effect.