Princess O'Rourke (1943) on Netflix
Princess Maria refuses the suitors her uncle Holman picks for her. Flying to California under a false name, she sleeps through the trip, and pilot Eddie O'Rourke looks after her.
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- IMDb6.7/101,686 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
Princess Maria and her uncle Holman are exiles from a conquered European country, living in New York City. Holman wants his niece married soon and the mother of a male heir, but she refuses the candidates he suggests, among them Count Peter de Candome. Traveling to California as Mary Williams and afraid of the flight, Maria is mistakenly given too many sleeping pills. Bad weather sends the airliner back to New York, and the crew cannot wake her. Eddie O'Rourke, the pilot, looks after her without knowing who she is. She wakes the next morning in his apartment in his pajamas, then tells her uncle she slept at the airport and spends the day with Eddie and his friends Dave and Jean Campbell.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Princess O'Rourke (1943)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Olivia de Havilland fought openly with Warner Bros. and eventually sued the studio; the landmark case produced the de Havilland Law (California Labor Code Section 2855), which set a seven-calendar-year limit on studio-player contracts.
- Robert Cummings was often unavailable because he was simultaneously shooting Between Us Girls at Universal, so Olivia de Havilland sometimes had to play scenes to a stand-in; Charles Coburn kept forgetting his lines, and Cummings missed days with ptomaine poisoning.
- Olivia de Havilland at first refused the title role and was suspended by Warner Bros., which tested Alexis Smith as a replacement; Claude Rains campaigned to be in the film, but Charles Coburn was cast instead.
- President Roosevelt granted the production limited access to film at the White House, and FDR's Scottie dog Fala played himself, because, as Ben Mankiewicz said in his TCM introduction, "No dog body-doubles for Fala."
- While in post-production, the wartime Bureau of Motion Pictures screened the finished film and strenuously objected to it; unlike other features, the script had never been pre-approved by the BMP.
- Arthur Schwartz, Edward "Yip" Harburg and Ira Gershwin had written "Honorable Moon" in 1941 for a United China Relief fundraiser, and donated their Warner Bros. fee to the same charity; Nan Wynn sings it in a Chinese restaurant scene.
- Jane Wyman's performance was admired by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and led to her being cast in The Lost Weekend.
