Princess O’Rourke (1943) – Sunday Morning @ 08:00 AM (ET)
Princess O’Rourke is a modern-day sleeping beauty tale. In this feel-good war-time comedy, the Princess, Maria, (today’s TCM featured star Olivia de Havilland, credited as Olivia DeHavilland) is traveling alone and under the assumed name Mary Williams. To take the edge off her night flight, she inadvertently takes too many sleeping pills, and her Prince Charming, pilot Eddie O’Rourke (Robert Cummings) just can’t rouse her. What else can he and his co-pilot Dave (Jack Carson) do but take her home to Dave’s wife Jean (Jane Wyman). When the princess finally regains some measure of sobriety, this uncaged bird decides to fly for a while. She concocts a cover story of poverty and servitude and temporarily abdicates her throne. And meanwhile she and Eddie are falling in love.
The movie starts with the question “when does he find out who she is?” But her identity is revealed relatively early, and the question then becomes “how can a princess marry a commoner? The big obstacle? The Ambassador, a.k.a. “Uncle” (the dyspeptic Charles
Coburn). Unbeknownst to her, Uncle has done some research. It seems the kingdom is in need of a male heir. And it seems that Eddie is one of nine brothers and that his father one of 11. Suddenly, the idea of strengthening the ties between nations makes a lot of sense. The marriage is condoned, and Eddie begins his training to assume the role of prince consort. Which seems to be another word for stooge. He grows increasingly resentful, but is willing to endure the slights to American Manhood. But when he’s asked to renounce his American citizenship, he finally objects. Uncle informs him that “it’s customary in our family.” Eddie replies that “it’s not customary my family.” Uncle condescendingly chuckles “heh, heh, your family.” Eddie erupts into a patriotic speech and is summarily ejected. He tells The Princess she has to choose. She slinks back into captivity. He walks. Of course it can’t end this way. Tune in and find out.
The theme of royalty escaping the gilded cage to observe daily life incognito goes back at least to Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, and was also played out on the screen in the 1953 Gregory Peck/Audrey Hepburn romance Roman Holiday. Of course, one of the dangers of these flights of fancy is the possibility of a romantic encounter with a commoner. The specter of a mixed marriage was a drama that had played out less than ten years earlier in England with the abdication of Edward VIII, who chose true love over the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and was certainly still fresh in the minds of American movie audiences
Norman Krasna won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Princess O’Rourke. Krasna, who had been a successful screenwriter and producer, as well a playwright for the Broadway stage since the early thirties, decided to take the director’s chair for this film-his first of only three such efforts.
