Her Highness and the Bellboy(1945).

Her Highness and the Bellboy(1945). Cast: Hedy Lamarr, June Allyson, Agnus Morehead and Robert Walker.

The story begins, when a beautiful princess falls in love with a handsome American reporter. She travels to New York, just to be with him. While staying at one of the city's best hotels she meets a bellhop who thinks she is her a maid. She invites him to be her escort, not realizing he has fallen in love with her. It is not long before he thinks that she feels the same way he does.

Later, the bellhop goes to visit a young woman who is a invalid. He doesn't realize that the girl is in love with him. After the princess finds her reporter, he turns her way, because he thinks they are from two different worlds. She is broken hearted and the bellhop asks if he can help. She asks him to take her to a bar called Jake's Joint to look for her reporter.

In a tuxedo, the bellhop stops by to visit his invalid friend before his date. He gives her the corsage he had bought for the princess and after he leaves, she cries. At the club, the princess looks for the reporter, but he is no where to be found. The bellhop's friend is there with some thugs and a fight breaks out. The police raid Jake's Joint and the princess is hauled off in the paddy wagon. The reporter gets there in time to see her carried off.

When the bellhop gets back to the hotel, he learns the princess's father has died and she is now queen. The reporter bails her out and they return to her hotel. When the queen learns her father has died she makes plans to go home and offers the bellhop a job. But instead, the bellhop thinks she wants him to be her consort. When he visits his invalid friend to say goodbye, she takes a step and he promises that she will get well. Both the new queen and the bellhop have some big decisions to make.

Fun Facts:

M-G-M saved money by utilizing the same main set as the one from "Weekend at the Waldorf" (1945). When that company finished, "Her Highness and the Bellboy" moved in.

Mickey Rooney was supposed to star in this movie but Rooney ended up being drafted into the war, so Robert Walker was cast instead.

This was Hedy Lamarr's last film she did for MGM under her contract. After this she went on to free lance.

What I was expecting was a fluffy chick flick film, turned out to be a really a beautiful movie, which makes you think about who your friends really are.

Strangers on a Train: RIP Farley Granger

Farley Granger (1925-2011)

Sixty years ago, Farley Granger blessed us with what is probably his most famous and memorable role, that of the innocent stranger to Robert Walker's psychotic stranger who met each other on a train in Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 thriller   aptly titled   Strangers on a Train.  Though one must admit, Walker walks away with the film, Granger nevertheless mastered the stoic hero role with grace and precision.  It's the sort of invisible role which Christian Bale praised Mark Walhberg for doing in The Fighter, and that Bale himself has done numerous times.  In Hollywood, unfortunately, such strong roles aren't given much praise, but Granger never seemed to bore of them.

Granger with the
Master of Suspense

It's certainly sad when a celebrity dies, sadder more when most general film-goers don't know the name.  But I find whenever a star like Granger passes, it reminds me how much quality work they've done, and I inevitably begin returning to their work and discovering hidden gems.  I can only hope I get the opportunity to do this with Granger (I've embarrassingly never seen the likes of Rope or Senso, but now they've turned into priorities).

If anything, maybe Granger's passing will get people to discover his work, and especially Strangers on a Train, which is far and away one of Hitchcock's most underrated works (sure, people recognize it, but sadly not on the level of Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, Rebecca, or North by Northwest).  It's a brilliant film, his most suspenseful and complete with a circus-inspired climax only rivaled in the Hitchcock cannon to Vera Miles de-wigging a rotting corpse.



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