The Swan (1956)

Film: The Swan (1956)

Stars: Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Agnes Moorehead, Jessie Royce Landis

Director: Charles Vidor

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Grace Kelly-click here to learn more about Ms. Kelly (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

In April of 1955, Grace Kelly headed to Cannes as part of the US delegation for that year's festivities.  While she was there, there was an arranged meeting with Prince Rainier of nearby Monaco, which led to a courtship, which led to one of the most spectacular moments in movie history when Grace Kelly, movie star extraordinaire, became a literal Hollywood princess.  As we'll discuss below, this is where Grace Kelly's acting career ended-just weeks after winning an Oscar, the highest honor for an actress, she was basically on her way out of the industry, as Kelly would never work again as an actress in films after going royal.  She had two movies in the can before she left Hollywood which came out after she was a princess.  One was High Society, which I've seen (and which pales in comparison to the original Philadelphia Story).  The other was one I hadn't, and so I saw The Swan for this project, and as luck would have it (for both me and for MGM's publicity department) the film stars Kelly...playing a princess.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Princess Alexandra (Kelly) who is a relatively low-ranking royal living her years out with her mother Princess Beatrix (Landis), after the announcement that Crown Prince Albert (Guinness) will be visiting.  Beatrix is insistent that this is the opportunity they've been waiting for to get back their stature, marrying the Crown Prince & making Alexandra a queen.  The only problem is that Alexandra is a bit of a bore, and Albert is far more interested in music & other nerdy endeavors to give Alexandra much heed.  Beatrix comes up with a plan to have her sons' handsome tutor Nicholas (Jourdan) try to woo Alexandra in hopes of making Albert jealous, but the plan backfires spectacular when it turns out that Nicholas is already in love with Alexandra...and quickly she is in love with him.  When the Queen (Moorehead) comes to town, everything comes to a head as the love triangle must find one side to stand on.

According to what I've read, the producers of The Swan (based on a play by Molnar) considered changing the traditional ending of the film, which ends with Alexandra & Nicholas apart because she cannot marry a commoner.  However, after Princess Margaret declined to marry Peter Townsend, they decided the ending should stand, and so the movie ends with Alexandra likely to marry either no one or (more probably) Albert, knowing that neither will be particularly happy together but they've fulfilled their duty to their country.  It might be this reason why I like it.  The Swan is not a particularly good movie (even if the sets are really fun & the supporting cast is decent), but I enjoyed it.  It's the kind of turn-off-your-brain romantic drama that you can sometimes get sucked into on a rainy afternoon, and that was the mood I was in for the picture.

Kelly is a dud in the movie, pretty blasé (though it is fun to see her acting with a leading man who is actually her age after she wooed men 10+ years older than her the rest of the month) and more ornamental.  Watching Kelly this month (and I've now seen virtually every film she ever made), I'm struck by how Hitchcock is the only director who ever really got her as a performer.  She is so much better-suited for his work, and she fits in some ways with actresses like Lizabeth Scott or January Jones, who were really good at one specific thing, but otherwise fell flat.

Her life would look like a storybook, but wouldn't exactly be one.  Reports of the marriage run from it being a good one with some problems to one that felt isolating for Kelly.  She would give Rainer an heir (and two spares), continuing on the line of the Monaco royal family, but she had to give up acting, despite attempts to get back in roles in Marnie and The Turning Point.  Kelly's life was cut short in 1982 when she suffered a stroke while driving with her daughter Stephanie-Stephanie was fine, but Kelly died due to injuries to her brain and chest at the age of just 52.  Next month we're going to take a look at an actress who was one Kelly's contemporaries, one who like Kelly would work with Alfred Hitchcock early on in her career, but while Kelly's film career was defined by Hitchcock, this actress would make him a rather dismissible chapter in an otherwise other-worldly career.

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Film: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Stars: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan
Director: Max Ophuls
Oscar History: Somehow, despite this film's reputation, absolutely no Oscar nominations.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Few things stir my heart more than a film being referred to as a "forgotten classic."  I'm at the point in my cinematic journey where, if I'm going to see a truly great movie for the first time (and not have it be a new release), pretty much all of the films are going to have to be "forgotten classics," as the "celebrated classics" have all gotten a checkmark next to their name.  So last night, armed with a tub of popcorn and feeling a wee bit off (I think it's the lack of fresh air and exercise, something I hope to remedy today), I decided to see a film that I had heard spoken about in hushed tones by pretty much anyone who had seen it, but that wasn't a lot of people, and it's weirdly hard to find on streaming, TCM, or even Netflix DVD (I had to actually go out and purchase the DVD), and finally watched the celebrated Max Ophuls' film Letter from an Unknown Woman.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is chiefly a duet between Lisa Berndle (Fontaine), a young girl infatuated with a promising piano player named Stefan Brand (Jourdan) (though I loved Art Smith in the small role of Stefan's mute butler).  Lisa is a poor girl, infatuated with Stefan (and his many lovers), and clearly is madly in love with him in the way that we all can be on a first love.  When her mother marries a wealthy gentleman, giving Lisa a chance at respectability, she gives up the opportunity to marry a well-to-do young gentleman because she's still in love with Stefan, and runs back to Vienna, working as a model, but spending every night in front of Stefan's apartment.  One night he finally notices her, and he takes her on a remarkable date, charming her in the ways she'd always dreamed, and they have sex, which because this is a movie in the 1940's, obviously ends with her pregnant.  Rather than force him to marry her, she never tells him about their son, and marries an older man, who gives her a chance at the life her mother hoped for her.  Unfortunately, at one point she sees Stefan again, and though he doesn't remember her, she can't help but fall back in love with him, abandoning her marriage, and running to his side...and then realizing in a truly heartbreaking scene that he is never going to remember her, because what for her was the greatest moment of her life was for him just another conquest.  She leaves, she and her son die of typhus, and Stefan, after reading the letter of her life and realizing that he had a chance at a great love but let it slip away, goes to fight a duel with her jilted husband, his death near certain.

That's a lot of plot, and it's told in 86 minutes so you'd think there's not a lot of time to catch your breath, but Letter from an Unknown Woman is sly in that way.  The movie focuses almost exclusively on its two leads, and as a result the moments of sheer romance and tragedy in the film are heartily felt since they're the only two people you really know in the film (though, again, Art Smith's butler is top drawer).  As a result, the exquisite moments where Lisa gets to finally realize her romance are exceptional, a glorious fleeting glance where you feel like years of admiration were worth it.  They'll remind you of the most romantic moments of your life, whether those led to lifelong companionship or just warm memories.

The film wouldn't work if the two leads weren't fully committed to these roles.  Joan Fontaine hasn't been this good since Rebecca, and plays the gorgeous wallflower exquisitely.  Her Lisa is a woman of independence, but not necessarily pride-her only goal is to obtain more time with Stefan, which makes the moment when she realizes that he was not worthy of her love, that he was just a man and she was perhaps the extraordinary one, all the more damning.  This is some Grade-A "facial journey" acting from Fontaine, and I'm kind of stunned considering she was a big star at the time (and nominating her would have meant a sequel to the Fontaine/de Havilland Oscar feud since Olivia was cited that year for The Snake Pit) that this didn't land her an Oscar nomination; it surely should have.

The same can be said of Jourdan, who has never been better.  His Stefan is the less demanding role on paper, but it's also a challenge.  He has to make us fall in love with him, then earn that love, and then make us understand that he is only a man, but a man who realized too late the folly of his ways.  The scenes toward the end, where he breaks Fontaine's heart, and then has to confront his butler about whether "he remembered her" as Stefan finally did at the time-it's melodramatic and tear-inducing, but it's so enchanting.  Written by Howard Koch (who also wrote the ultimate Hollywood romance Casablanca), Stefan is a weak man more than he is a bad one, and Jourdan knows how to play such a nuanced part brilliantly.  Unlike Fontaine, Jourdan's role is not the type we'd normally see at the Oscars (the young, handsome guys were normally forced to wait a while), but he also deserved that citation, even in a particularly strong field for Best Actor (which also didn't have room for Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, so Oscar screwed up twice that year).

Combined with a beautiful violin score and Franz Planer's moody cinematography, the biggest surprise for me of Letter from an Unknown Woman was not that it was briliant, but how is this a "forgotten classic."  How is a film so romantic, simple, elegant, and devastating not one that is instantly remembered?  If you haven't seen it & but love the movies, do yourself a favor and change that immediately.

OVP: Julie (1956)

Film: Julie (1956)
Stars: Doris Day, Louis Jourdan
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Original Screenplay, Original Song-"Julie")
Snap Judgment Rating: 1/5 stars

One of the things that I've noticed about Oscar is that he sometimes deems to endorse some really odd and occasionally atrocious films.  Click is an Oscar-nominated film, even if Once Upon a Time in the West is not.  Norbit, Oscar nominee-Mean Streets, again, not so much.  Unfortunately, Julie is the sort of film that belongs in the "Oscar nominee-really?" category.  Julie's a thriller, so I am required to say spoilers ahead, even though I think it should be implied.

Starring the eternally lovely Doris Day and the handsome Louis Jourdan as a recently married couple who are on their honeymoon, the film starts out so suddenly that you sort of wonder if the DVD accidentally got edited incorrectly and you've missed the first fifteen minutes.  Day is fighting with Jourdan, and suddenly Jourdan pounds on the accelerator, and Day is forced to make more sharp (and ludicrously accurate) turns than Mario Andretti did in his entire career.

The film continues on high, high adrenaline, and you quickly learn that Jourdan killed Day's first husband, and that for some reason he has decided she must die as well.  We get no background into what drove him to kill her husband outside of jealousy (had he pined for her for years?  We'll never know), and we also don't learn what drove Day so quickly to get over her husband and marry Jourdan. What does happen is a case of constant bumps in the night, crank calls, dark alley trailings, and finally and most ridiculously, a showdown between Jourdan and Day, who is forced to land a plane with absolutely no training whatsoever.  There's occasionally some "it's so bad it's good" moments, particularly surrounding an incredibly hammy Jourdan, but as a whole this is a largely forgettable and heavy-handed melodrama.

1956 has never been my favorite Oscar vintage, but it's hard to believe that the Academy couldn't have found a better Original Screenplay.  The song is slightly more forgiving, though it only plays over the credits and if you listen to the lyrics, makes little sense in the course of the film, as the song is about being in love with a man who is dangerous, and the movie spends absolutely no time on the "in love" portion of the two leads' tale.

What about you-have you seen Julie?  Was it is "so bad it's good" or just "so bad it's terrible?"  Would you mind terribly if the debonair Louis Jourdan was stalking you?  And what original screenplays should the Academy have chosen in 1956?