From the 1950s: The Swan

1956 Romance Comedy Drama
From Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Directed by Charles Vidor

Starring

Grace Kelly

Alec Guinness

Louis Jourdan

Agnes Moorehead

Jessie Royce Landis

Brian Aherne

Leo G. Carroll

Estelle Winwood

Robert Coote

MGM had Grace Kelly under contract from 1953 when she appeared in Mogambo.  She had made only one other movie for them, 1954s Colombian jungle nonsense, Green Fire, clearly her worst film. While the studio agreed to loan her out for her other films (at exorbitant fees), in 1955 they were starting to crack down.  Most of her best work was done at Paramount (Rear Window, her Oscar-winning role in The Country Girl, The Bridges at Toko-Ri and To Catch a Thief) and MGM was calling its prized actress back home.

In early 1955 there was talk of her doing at least three films... Giant, Designing Woman and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof... but they would be a couple of years off.  I have always wondered whether she would have been able to pull off Cat but thought she would have been ideal for the other two.

The young actress was finicky about what she would appear in.  She'd recently turned down a Robert Taylor western and would go on yet another suspension as a result.  But studio head Dore Schary was determined she would appear in more MGM productions, ones both studio and actress could agree on.

They decided to start her off with The Swan, based on a play by Ferenc Molnár.  Kelly had already appeared in the play and done a television appearance on the work and thought it would be ideal for her.  She was keenly aware of her image and thought she would be a very believable princess.  The only other logical choice, as she saw it, was Audrey Hepburn who had won as Oscar for playing a princess a few years earlier.   

Perhaps Charles Vidor was signed to direct this third movie version of The Swan because he and the playwright were both Hungarian and he could easily bring Molnár's sensibilities to the screen.  Vidor was still riding high on the MGM success of Love Me or Leave Me.  I wonder, considering he also directed Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), if he's the only man to direct two actresses who went on to become real-life princesses.

Before one suggests The Swan is art imitating life, this project came about a good year before Kelly met Prince Rainier.  But it wouldn't seem inaccurate to suggest it's life imitating art.  By the time she actually starting filming the movie, however, she had met him.  Some of those she worked with suggested that she wasn't quite herself, that she was distracted.  It seemed obvious.

At the heart of the story, in an unnamed European country, is Princess Beatrix (Landis) who may find her royal days numbered if she cannot successfully navigate her comely, treacly and shy daughter, Princess Alexandra, into the arms of and a marriage contract with a visiting cousin, Prince Albert (Guinness).   (As Princess Grace she would name her only son Albert.)

Beatrix is afraid her daughter is too shy and may escape Albert's notice despite her obvious beauty.  He does, in fact, notice her but, not exactly an extrovert himself, he makes an awkward attempt to hold her hand and she pulls away.  Albert says he is bored to death with months and months of courtship bookings and appears far more interested in the family's dairy cows and the activities of Alexandra's much younger brothers, amusingly full of themselves under the guidance and care of Nicholas (Jourdan), a live-in tutor, who unknown to anyone, is in love with Alexandra.  

Also part of the household is a priest, Father Carl (Aherne) who is Beatrix's brother, and therefore a former royal who amuses himself (and us but not Beatrix) with the whimsy he creates over all the dramatic posturing and grand manners.  Not a great fan of protocol, he can hardly believe the machinations he's witnessing and we come to look forward to his getting a little scolding.  Of course he's also the one to deliver some of the film's messaging, much of which applies as much today as it did in 1956.

If the good Father is around to chiefly deliver the comedy, so, too, is Winwood as Symphorosa, a doddering old (I should think somewhere around 275) live-in cousin who keeps giving the truth away much to everyone's embarrassment.

Alexandra shows up for her fencing lessons with Nicholas.  Actually these brief scenes are my favorites.  Kelly said learning how to fence was part of her training as an actress and she enjoyed doing it.  She looks great in her regalia and her character is not so shy and withdrawn.

Things move along considerably when Beatrix suggests to Alexandra that she play up to the handsome tutor by inviting him to the ball she is giving with the intention of making Albert jealous and hopefully bringing about an engagement.  No one, of course, has given a moment's attention to the fact that Nicholas loves her which is pretty obvious despite all the secrecy.  Actually, the ploy is such a cruel thing to do that, for some, it may taint the comic element that is at the center.  

It is intended that much will start festering when Alexandra and Nicholas waltz together.  But Albert has discovered the orchestra and is more interested in playing the bass than cutting in on the tutor.  Let me tell you though... the waltz, that long waltz, with these two glamorous actors is such a joy to behold. 

Of course the scheme backfires and Alexandra confesses her part in the ploy.  Nicholas is terribly hurt at the sound of her words (including that she knows she wants to be queen) and she feels much shame when he tells her that he loves her.  Bravo to the writing during these heavy scenes... so on the mark.  

Nicholas and Albert exchange some nasty words... the focus being on the impropriety of a commoner speaking to a member of the royal family in such a manner.  Nicholas gets fired by Beatrix and the next morning as he's preparing to leave, Alexandra confesses her love for him and decides to leave with him.

The romantic in me would have liked the ending to have gone that way but Nicholas decides their pairing simply could never work.  Albert joins Alexandra on the terrace as she watches Nicholas leave.  He tells her how much she reminds him of a swan.  (I hear ya, Albie.)  He takes her arm and they walk inside together.

The Swan is far from being Kelly's best film but (as stated earlier), it is not her worst either.  For some it would be considered old-fashioned and too stately but we diehard fans of the actress tend to overlook the old-fashioned part.  Stately goes with castles and royalty, no?  There is some sparkling humor and a wonderful group of actors to support Kelly in the only top-billed role of her brief career.

Pardon the pun but she was born to play a princess.  Her aristocratic bearing, impeccable manners, beautiful gowns designed by MGM's Helen Rose (who would also design her real wedding dress) and that incandescent beauty leave no doubt this was a role she was meant to play on and off the screen.  And that is, in fact, what I love most about The Swan over her other films.  We get to see her play a princess and I, for one, was fond of the idea.

Jourdan and Rex Harrison were immediately considered for the two male leads.  Harrison, however, ever the pugnacious one, could not come to terms with the studio.  Joseph Cotten was briefly considered before the role of the prince landed in the lap of Guinness.

It was a happy filming experience, apparently, for all.  Guinness was keen about working with Grace in his first American film.  I've never seen a Guinness movie that I wouldn't have replaced him with another actor.  I might not accuse him of being boring but he has certainly displayed a talent for toning down (if not turning off) passion.  

Kelly was thrilled to be working again with Landis, who brilliantly played her mother a year earlier in To Catch a Thief.  Her character here may not be all that likeable to some but the actress invested great time and care in getting the audience to feel that way.  The two friends loved to gossip which inevitably led to bouts of hysterical laughing.  They adored one another.

 

Jourdan is perfection in his role of the revered tutor... polished, smart, opinionated, handsome and that voice I loved.  Like Kelly's princess, they both inherently knew the people they were playing and had only to draw on their own reserves.  The same could be said for Moorehead in her couple of scenes as Guinness's queen mother.  Someone said... we need an imperious character actress, whom can we call?  Who indeed.

The cast was excited to float in the opulence of Biltmore House, a stunning model of a French Renaissance chateau built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt in Asheville, North Carolina.  A second location is Lake Junaluska, a 200-acre, man-made lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The interior shots were done on MGM soundstages and to say the least, Henry B. Grace and Edwin Willis's set directions are gorgeous.  No one could find fault with MGM on the look.

It's often been said that this was MGM's wedding gift to Grace Kelly... a ridiculous statement... and that it was released on her wedding day.  It was not.  It was completed well before her marriage but held up until around the big event.  The civil ceremony of the marriage was performed on April 18, 1956, with the religious ceremony the following day.  The Swan was released a week later on April 26.

The film was not a financial success.  It is generally conceded that with the worldwide coverage of the actual wedding and the breathless coverage before and after it, who wanted to see a movie about her life as a princess?  I think the critics got it about right.

How cutesy someone wanted to be by claiming The Swan was Kelly's swan song to the movies, which of course is not true.  She had one more in her... a popular little thing called High Society.

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