''The Princess Comes Across'' is a 1936 American

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' *Mystery, a seahorse that SpongeBob SquarePants adopts in the episode " My Pre ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

William K. Howard William K. Howard (June 16, 1899 – February 21, 1954) was an American film director, writer, and producer. Considered one of Hollywood's leading directors at one point, he directed over 50 films from 1921 to 1946, including '' The Thundering H ...

and starring

Carole Lombard Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard ...

and

Fred MacMurray Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film le ...

, the second of the four times they were paired together. Lombard, playing an actress from Brooklyn pretending to be a Swedish princess, does a "film-length takeoff" on

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

's Swedish star

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's Silent film, silent and early Classical Hollywood cinema, golden eras. Regarded as one of the g ...

.Gehring, Wes D. ''Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado'' Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 2003. pp.136-137 The film was based on the 1935 novel ''A Halálkabin'' by Louis Lucien Rogger, the pseudonym of Laszlo Aigner and Louis Acze.

Plot

Wanda Nash (

), an actress from Brooklyn, decides to masquerade as "Princess Olga" from Sweden in order to land a film contract with a big Hollywood studio. On board the liner ''Mammoth'' bound for New York, she runs into King Mantell (

), a

concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

-playing band leader with a criminal record in his past. Both are blackmailed by Robert M. Darcy (

Porter Hall Clifford Porter Hall (September 19, 1888 – October 6, 1953) was an American character actor known for appearing in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Hall typically played villains or comedic incompetent characters. Early years Hall wa ...

), and after Darcy is killed, they become two of the prime suspects for the murder, and must find the real killer before the five police detectives traveling on the ship can pin it on them.

Cast

as Wanda Nash/"Princess Olga" *

as King Mantell *

Douglass Dumbrille Douglass Rupert Dumbrille (October 13, 1889 – April 2, 1974) was a Canadian actor who appeared regularly in films from the early 1930s. Life and career Douglass Dumbrille ( ) was born in Hamilton, Ontario. As a young man, he was employed ...

as Inspector Lorel *

Alison Skipworth Alison Skipworth (born Alison Mary Elliott Margaret Groom; 25 July 18635 July 1952) was an English stage and screen actress. Early years Skipworth was born in London. She was the daughter of Dr. Richard Ebenezer Groom and Elizabeth Rodgers, an ...

as Lady Gertrude Allwyn * George Barbier as Captain Nicholls *

William Frawley William Clement Frawley (February 26, 1887 – March 3, 1966) was an American vaudevillian and actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the sitcom ''I Love Lucy.'' Frawley also played "Bub" O'Casey during the first five seasons of t ...

as Benton *

as Robert M. Darcy *

Lumsden Hare Francis Lumsden Hare (17 October 1874 – 28 August 1964) was an Irish-born American film and theatre actor. He was also a theatre director and theatrical producer. Early years Hare was born in County Tipperary, Ireland. He studied at St. Duns ...

as Inspector Cragg *

Sig Ruman Siegfried Carl Alban Rumann (October 11, 1884 – February 14, 1967), billed as Sig Ruman and Sig Rumann, was a German-American character actor known for his portrayals of pompous and often stereotypically Teutonic officials or villains in ...

as Inspector Steindorf *

Mischa Auer Mischa Auer (born Mikhail Semyonovich Unkovsky, ; 17 November 1905 – 5 March 1967) was a Russian-American actor who moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s. He first appeared in film in 1928. Auer had a long career playing in many of the era's ...

as Inspector Morevitch *

Tetsu Komai (23 April 1894 – 10 August 1970), also known as Tetsuo Komai, was a Japanese-born American actor, known for his minor roles in Hollywood films. Biography Born in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Komai had small parts in over 50 films from the 1920s until t ...

as Inspector Kawati *

Gladden James Gladden James (February 26, 1888 – August 28, 1948) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 180 films between 1911 and 1946. He was born in Zanesville, Ohio and died in Hollywood, California, from leukemia. Family In 1914 h ...

as Ship's Official *

George Chandler George Chandler (June 30, 1898 – June 10, 1985) was an American actor who starred in over 140 feature films, usually in smaller supporting roles, and he is perhaps best known for playing the character of Uncle Petrie Martin on the television ...

as Film Man *

Milburn Stone Hugh Milburn Stone (July 5, 1904 – June 12, 1980) was an American actor, best known for his role as "Doc" (Dr. Galen Adams) on the Western (genre), Western series ''Gunsmoke''. Early life Stone was born in Burrton, Kansas, to Herbert Stone an ...

as Reporter (uncredited)

Production

''The Princess Comes Across'' – which began with the working title ''Concertina''"Notes"
on

TCM.com Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...

– was initially intended to pair Lombard with

George Raft George Raft (né Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembe ...

for the third time, but Raft walked out when the studio assigned

Ted Tetzlaff Ted Dale Tetzlaff (born Dale Herbert Tetzlaff; June 3, 1903 – January 7, 1995) was an American Academy Award-nominated cinematographer active in the 1930s and 1940s. Career Tetzlaff was particularly favored by the actress Carole Lombard, whom ...

to photograph the film.Aaker, Everett. ''The Films of George Raft'', McFarland & Company, 2013. p.138 Raft felt that Tetzlaff had made Lombard look better than himself in their earlier film, ''

Rumba The term rumba may refer to a variety of unrelated music styles. Originally, "rumba" was used as a synonym for "party" in northern Cuba, and by the late 19th century it was used to denote the complex of secular music styles known as Cuban rumba ...

'', and did not want it to happen again. It was one of many roles Raft rejected after becoming a star. With Raft out of the picture, and temporarily suspended for his actions, the studio re-teamed Lombard and MacMurray, who had made the

screwball comedy Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1950s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary charact ...

Hands Across the Table ''Hands Across the Table'' is a 1935 American romantic screwball comedy film directed by Mitchell Leisen and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Carole Lombard as a manicurist looking for a rich husband and Fred MacMurray as a poor playboy, ...

'' together in 1935. They would be paired together twice more, in 1937's '' Swing High, Swing Low'' and '' True Confession'', made in the same year.Nixon, Ro
"The Princess Comes Across"
on

Aside from casting concerns, filming was also delayed by the need for additional dialogue, which caused a change of directors from Harold Young to

, and, after filming had begun in February 1936, by conflict between Howard and the producer's assistant.

Reception

Both the film and the stars received good notices. ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called her Garbo impersonation a "swell characterization and makes a highly diverting omedycontrast when the 'princess' lapses into her real self and unloads a line of Brooklynese." Howard Barnes of the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...

'' praised Lombard's " assured and restrained portrayal –

hich Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

is resourceful in exploiting its comic possibilities" The ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...

''s Thornton Delehanty called her ''Princess'' the " first role in which we have admired her since the early days of her picture career." Lombard herself liked the film because it "allowed her to do what she had first practiced in childhood days back in

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

– mimic a figure from the silver screen." However, Frank S. Nugent in his ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' review called the film a "mild-to-boresome comedy."

Adaptations

The ''Lux Radio Theater'' presented a one-hour radio adaptation of the film in December 1938, with Fred MacMurray repeating his role and

Madeleine Carroll Marie-Madeleine Bernadette O'Carroll (26 February 1906 – 2 October 1987) was an English actress, popular both in Britain and in America in the 1930s and 1940s. At the peak of her success in 1938, she was the world's highest-paid actress. Ca ...

playing Wanda Nash/Princess Olga.

References

Notes

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Princess Comes Across, The 1936 films 1930s comedy mystery films American black-and-white films American comedy mystery films Films about actors Films based on Hungarian novels Films directed by William K. Howard Films set on ships Paramount Pictures films 1936 comedy films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films Films set on ocean liners English-language comedy mystery films