Saw this last night on cable TV in a hotel in Zhuhai, China, of all places. This film was released 16 days before I was born, and not knowing the name of the picture or anything else, I pegged it exactly right (1957). There were many of these Americans-gaffing-their-way-through-Europe films at this time ("Royal Wedding" comes to mind...), I suppose sparked by the Fodor-induced rush to see Europe on $5 a Day. Since this seems to have been an Italian production, it's not quite so lame as many others. I actually found this one compelling in some ways for its weird melange of actors from completely different eras all thrown together like passengers on a doomed ship. Dietrich was much too old to play her role at this point (I kept asking myself in some disbelief, Is that really her?), and regrettably she looks it, jewels or no. The Americans are uniformly cringe-inducing, with the exception of the very winsome Natalie Trundy, who could have been another Patty Duke. Post-War Monte Carlo and Homer Hinkley's gargantuan yacht steal the show. It must have been magnificent in its original vista format on the big screen.
Review of The Montecarlo Story
