Princess O’Rourke (1943)

Princess O’Rourke
Directed by Norman Krasna
Written by Norman Krasna
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Eddie O’Rourke: [the princess is asleep in his arms] Boy, are you lucky I was raised right. Or was I? Yeah, I guess I was.[/box]

Princess O’Rourke is an entertaining light romantic comedy.

Princess Maria (Oliva De Havilland) is a member of the royal family of an unnamed European country, now in exile due to Nazi occupation.  The monarch is in London but Maria has taken up quarters in New York.  The fondest desire of her uncle Holman (Charles Coburn) is to marry her off so she can produce lots of male heirs.  But Maria is holding out for love or at least attraction.

Holman sends her off on a trip to San Francisco under the pseudonym “Mary Williams”in hopes that the rest will do her good.  She is afraid of flying and is told to take a sleeping pill to make the hours pass by.  She gets into bed in her private berth (!) on the commercial flight but still can’t sleep.  Various attendants pass out sleeping pills like candy (!), each not knowing the total. The plane is unable to take off because of weather but Maria is too zonked out to move without help.  So pilot Eddie O’Rourke (Robert Cummings) takes pity on her and puts her up at his place. When she comes to, she tells him she is a political refugee.  His heart goes out to her and before we know it he falls in love.  The fact that he is about to be inducted into the Air Force as a combat pilot hurries things along.  Maria loves him too but knows an alliance could never be.

When Holman finds out that Eddie comes from a family of nine sons, he is not exactly opposed to the match.  But could Eddie ever resign himself to the job of Prince Consort? With Jack Carson, fine as usual as Eddie’s co-pilot and buddy and Jane Wyman as his wife.

This has some obvious parallels to Roman Holiday (1953) and I must say that De Havilland gives Audrey Hepburn a run for her money in charm and allure.  She is very funny here. There’s a lot of silliness as well but, within the fairy tale world Krasna has created, it seems delicious rather than ridiculous.  If you like this kind of thing, go for it.

Princess O’Rourke won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Clip – Olivia De Havilland and Charles Coburn