Penny Princess

Yolande Donlan is a "Penny Princess" in this 1952 British musical also starring Dirk Bogarde. It's a cute premise - an American shopgirl, Lindy Smith, ends up inheriting a tiny country, Lampidorra, which has kept itself going by smuggling. Facing bankruptcy, part of the country is purchased by the Lindy's distant relative, who dies before forking over any cash. Lindy is brought over and given the royal welcome. She forbids smuggling, and the country begins to import schneese, a special kind of cheese they have taken for granted.

The movie is just okay, but quite good in the beginning, dragging a bit thereafter. "It's a Fine, Fine Night," one of the songs, apparently was released as a single, though the music throughout is just serviceable.

The American Donlan is attractive and likable, a cross between Judy Holliday and Janet Leigh. In fact, she was a big hit on the British stage in Holliday's Broadway role of Billie Dawn in "Born Yesterday." After that, she stayed on in England, and two years after this film, she married its writer/director, Val Guest, to whom she was married until his death in 2006. She's now 89 years old. She appears in Guest's 1963 film "80,000 Suspects" and is not recognizable in looks or acting as the same woman. She obviously had a lot of talent and a wide range.

It's hard to imagine anyone less suited to comedy than Dirk Bogarde, even young Dirk Bogarde, unless it's Montgomery Clift, but this role went to Bogarde after both Clift and Cary Grant refused it! He plays a cheese vendor who becomes involved with both the princess and the product schneese. And he's very cute.

The film was done on location in Spain. It's not very good, but Clift looks great in pajamas. And it's in color.

In this haphazard Technicolor fantasy, a ditzy but dauntless young American woman becomes the heir to the throne of a tiny, insolvent European country named Lampidorra. The bumbling representative of a British cheese company convinces her that the answer to Lampidorra's problem lies in its principal product: schneese, which is cheese crossbred with schnapps. "Penny Princess" is essentially an operetta without the singing. It's all very silly, the satire is heavy-handed, and the leading lady is a bit of a pill, but it's a harmless way to spend an hour and a half. Val Guest, who wrote and directed the film, would go on to better things, particularly in the field of science fiction. He also married the leading lady.

Penny Princess finds American working girl Yolande Donlon the inheritor of a small kingdom that lies in that triangle where France, Italy, and Switzerland meet called Lampidorra. It seems as though the Lampidorrans owe bills all over Europe and the main occupation of the country is smuggling due to its geography. An American multi-millionaire buys the place, but dies before he can take title. His nearest heir is Donlan.

But of course the estate has to go through probate in America and what are the Lampidorrans to do? Especially since Donlan who has now become a princess has forbade smuggling.

Enter Dirk Bogarde who is on a trip to Switzerland to learn about the cheese industry. It seems as though the Lampidorrans have a kind of cheese that they playfully refer to as Schmeeze. With a few bumps in the road, Schmeeze solves all the problems both financial, geopolitical, and romantic between Donlan and Bogarde.

How does Schmeeze work, well that's the gimmick to the whole film. But here's a hint. In Lover Come Back Jack Kruschen might just have gotten a hold of the secret of Schmeeze when he was busy inventing VIP for Rock Hudson and his advertising agency.

Anyway Penny Princess is a delightful blend of British farce and romantic comedy. Yolande Donlon once again plays a role that Marilyn Monroe would have been cast in if the film had been made this side of the pond. Dirk Bogarde was well cast in the part which was at the beginning of his career as a romantic heart throb, way before anyone but him suspected he had the acting chops he had.

This film was sadly shown at three o'clock in the morning on TCM. But at least I found a reason to be grateful for insomnia.

The country is named Lampidorra, and it's a tiny municipality in Europe, the smallest country in fact, kind of squished in next to Switzerland. It's so small, it makes Switzerland look the size of Mongolia. The citizens there have a thriving industry that has kept them going for years - the industry of smuggling.

A rich American buys half the country, and then dies. A grand search is on to find his nearest heir, who ends up being something like an Aunt's sister-in-law's nephew's second-cousin, twice removed. She travels to the country to sort out what's going on, and is shocked to see that they hold smuggling highly as their main source of income!

Sounds like a wonderful movie, eh? Good idea for a story line and somecomedy, and Dirk Bogarde in pyjamas. But the whole thing just isn't executed well, and it gets very trying after the first half-hour or so. The start is amusing, where it's narrated - telling you Lampidorra's history and also thanking the citizens for speaking English rather than Lampidorran during filming, thus wiping out the need for English subtitles! Overall though, only 5/10.

I am very sorry that this charming and whimsical film (which I first saw soon after it was first released in the early fifties) has had such a poor reception more recently. In my opinion it has been greatly underrated - but perhaps it appeals more to the European sense of humour than to (for example) the American: maybe we in Europe can understand and appreciate its subtleties and situations more, since we are closer to some of them in real life! Particular mention should be made of the limited but good music - especially the catchy and memorable song "It's a fine, fine night", which was issued separately on an HMV 78rpm record (10 inch plum label, I think!) in the fifties. I would urge anyone interested to give it a try if you get the chance: you may have a pleasant surprise.