The Princess Comes Across **** (1936, Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Douglass Dumbrille) – Classic Movie Review 6,759

Paramount Pictures’ stupendous 1936 romantic comedy mystery movie The Princess Comes Across again stars the hit pair of Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray on their best form.

Director William K Howard’s stupendous 1936 Paramount Pictures’ romantic comedy mystery movie The Princess Comes Across again stars the hit pair of Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, who are seen on their best form. The Princess Comes Across follows their 1935 hit Hands Across the Table. It is based on the novel by Louis Lucien Roger and a screen story by Philip MacDonald.

MacMurray plays bandleader King Mantell, an ocean-going sap returning home to America, who is taken in by fake European princess and fellow passenger, Olga (Lombard), and starts a shipboard romance, thinking she is the royal personage she pretends to be to get on their cruise ship. Lombard bases her fake Swedish princess character on an impersonation of Greta Garbo!

Apart from a blackmailer on board who seems to knows Olga is not who she claims to be, everything goes swimmingly until there is a murder and Olga and King have to try to figure out whodunit when evidence points to them. The murder is committed by an escaped killer who has stowed away under a fake identity – but who? Five international police detectives (Lumsden Hare, Douglass Dumbrille, Sig Ruman, Mischa Auer and Tetsu Komai) are on board conducting the investigation to find the killer.

The Princess Comes Across is a tastily cooked, entertaining, vivacious comedy thriller with a very decently written screenplay in the hands of a bunch of real professionals – Walter DeLeon, Frances Martin, Frank Butler, Don Hartman, Philip MacDonald, Claude Binyon and J B Priestley.

Lombard and MacMurray are an ideal screen partnership, and there are also other performances to savour from a whole slew of delightful people, including Alison Skipworth (as Lady Gertrude Allwyn), George Barbier (as the captain), Lumsden Hare (as the inspector), Douglass Dumbrille, Sig Ruman and Mischa Auer (as detectives), William Frawley (as Benton) and Porter Hall (as Robert Darcy), whose like we will never see again.

The Princess Comes Across is directed by William K Howard, runs 76 minutes, is made and released by Paramount Pictures, is written by Walter DeLeon, Frances Martin, Frank Butler, Don Hartman, Philip MacDonald, Claude Binyon and J B Priestley, based on the novel by Louis Lucien Roger and a screen story by Philip MacDonald, is shot in black and white by Ted Tetzlaff, is produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr, is scored by Phil Boutelje, Jack Scholl and John Leipold, and is designed by Hans Dreier and Ernst Fegté.

Also in the cast are Bradley Page as The Stranger, Tetsu Komai as Detective Kawati, George Chandler, André Cheron, Eddie Dunn, Dick Elliott, Charles Fallon, Pat Flaherty, Creighton Hale, Harry Hayden, Tom Herbert, Gladden James, Edward Keane, Christian Rub, George Sorel, Larry Steers, Milburn Stone and Phil Tead.

Lombard and MacMurray were next paired in True Confession (1937).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6,759

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