The Prince And The Showgirl (1957)

There is nothing more relaxing during the holidays than watching the midday movie in your pyjamas after a big night out (Maybe with the exception of breakfast in bed whilst watching reruns of Friends and dissecting everything that happened on said-night-out with actual friends). However due to the nature of this blog I don't really get to relax while I watch movies anymore, it's all about note-taking and trying to remember the plot so I can regurgitate it back to you in a paragraph or so. Thanks a lot film-dependent, you have ruined my sacred midday movie tradition.

Enough ranting, today I watched The Prince And The Showgirl an old Marilyn Monroe movie about a Prince (Laurence Olivier) who meets showgirl Elsie (Monroe) and tries to seduce her. Using her womanly wiles, Elsie is able to seduce her prince, broker peace in Europe and earn herself some sort medal for her services.

This isn't the best Marilyn Monroe movie I have ever seen, as you can guess she was only there to look pretty and play that same character she had been playing her entire career. But it's still Monroe who steals the show, mainly because she is incredibly beautiful in a white figure-hugging dress doesn't hurt. Our eyes naturally just shift over to her whenever she's in a scene and it's no surprise because there isn't much else about this movie that makes watching it a very pleasant experience.

Laurence Olivier's regent prince is so very annoying and ridiculous and not very handsome at all. I kind of despised him and most of the royal family of the imaginary Carpathia, why Elsie would waste her time with them is a mystery to me. And the plot moves at such a glacial pace, I could go and read War & Peace, come back and they would still be having the same conversation which I still wouldn't understand because the whole thing is so bloody confusing.

While I didn't enjoy The Prince and the Showgirl, Marilyn Monroe aficionados will maybe put up with it for her, depending on how patient they are. I wouldn't recommend it but whether you watch it, is entirely up to you. But in more recent news I hear that the new Michelle Williams movie about Marilyn is going to be set in the time when this movie was being made, hopefully it's not as bad.