MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: HER HIGHNESS AND THE BELLBOY (1945)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
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Wednesday, October 21, 2026

HER HIGHNESS AND THE BELLBOY (1945)

Beautiful as ever at 31 (with ravishing portrait shots from cinematographer Harry Stradling); acting a bit more animated than usual; lucking out with fast-rising Robert Walker as co-star, stepping in for a just drafted Mickey Rooney; and getting a solid hit* out of the standard issue Euro-Royalty meets Stateside Commoner playbook; yet for Hedy Lamarr at M-G-M, the writing was already on the wall and her contract wasn’t renewed. (She only made two more A-list pics: C.B. DeMille’s SAMSON AND DELILAH/’49 and Bob Hope’s MY FAVORITE SPY/’51 before her acting career soon faded away.) It's directed by M-G-M company-man Richard Thorpe, but family-friendly producer Joe Pasternak pulls the strings behind this sentimental corn that sees NYC hotel bellboy Walker ditch bedridden girlfriend June Allyson once he mistakes visiting Princess Lamarr’s friendly manner at the hotel for love. Pasternak being Pasternak, there’s a big musical sequencer so Allyson can get off the couch where she paints porcelain figurines (really!) to sing and dance in her dreams. (Nothing physically wrong with the lass, she just needs a proposal from Walker’s distracted bellboy to receive a ‘love cure.’) Loaded with ill-used M-G-M contract players (Agnes Moorehead as a chilly royal relative; Carl Esmond as designated fiancé, slow-witted ‘dese-dems-dose’ Rags Ragland for comic relief) . . . and the damn thing goes on for nearly two hours.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: You’d think these Royalty/Commoner impossible romance dramedies would have died off ages ago. But no; still being made today. ROMAN HOLIDAY/’53 (Wyler; Peck, Hepburn) still the ideal. Best from M-G-M: THE STUDENT PRINCE. Worst from M-G-M: THE STUDENT PRINCE. See LINKS for details. (Hint: the bad one directed by this film’s Richard Thorp and produced by this film’s Joe Pasternak. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-student-prince-in-old-heidelberg.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-student-prince-1954.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Keep in mind, just about anything made money in 1945, the last year of the war seeing Hollywood’s all-time highest attendance numbers.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2026

HER HIGHNESS AND THE BELLBOY (1945)

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