Der Schwan (1956)
36KDer Schwan: Directed by Charles Vidor. With Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Agnes Moorehead. When a crown prince visits, the princess’s mother tries to push the prince into marrying her daughter by presenting a “rival” at the ball – her children’s handsome tutor.
“Before her marriage to Prince Rainier, Grace Kelly made this next-to-last film for M-G-M, the royalty (though, alas, in somewhat of a decline from its glory days) of Hollywoodu0026#39;s studio u0026quot;system.u0026quot; I thought it, along with u0026quot;High Society,u0026quot; a graceful exit for the lovely Miss Kelly, and M-G-M surrounded her with thorough professionals both before and behind the CinemaScope cameras. I especially enjoyed Alec Guinness, Jessie Royce Landis, and the wonderful Estelle Winwood, as well as Brian Aherne and Louis Jourdan. Itu0026#39;s not available on DVD (and may possibly never be) and, I fear, the VHS version is formatted to fit the full screens of non-widescreen TVs. Too bad…Itu0026#39;s a handsome production which, no doubt, wonu0026#39;t visually impress very much when diminished by, ugh!, u0026quot;formatting.u0026quot; Whatu0026#39;s wrong with u0026quot;letterboxing,u0026quot; may I ask? Maybe itu0026#39;s the word itself!”
