The Student Prince (film)

The Student Prince
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Produced by Joe Pasternak
Written by Sonya Levien
William Ludwig
Dorothy Donnelly (operetta)
Based on Karl Heinrich
1904 novel
Old Heidelberg
1903 play
The Student Prince
operetta
by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster
Starring Ann Blyth
Edmund Purdom
Mario Lanza
John Ericson
Louis Calhern
Edmund Gwenn
S.Z. Sakall
Betta St. John
John Williams
Evelyn Varden
John Hoyt
Music by Sigmund Romberg
Cinematography Paul Vogel
Edited by Gene Ruggiero
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
 June 15, 1954 (1954-06-15)
Running time
 107 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $2,438,000[1]
Box office $5,341,000[1]

The Student Prince is a 1954 CinemaScope and Ansco Color musical film directed by Richard Thorpe.

Plot

Young Prince Karl (Edmund Purdom), of a small kingdom within the German Empire, is sent off near the turn of the 20th century to get a university education in Heidelberg, Baden-Wuerttemberg. His grandfather (Louis Calhern) was one of a handful of petty kings within German-speaking central Europe. Fictional Karlsburg is small, but fiercely proud of its history and traditions.

Karl has been raised most of his life for the military, but when it comes time for him to marry, the princess (Betta St. John) picked for him cannot stand his stiff formality. This would not be such a problem but for the fact that Karlsburg has no great wealth, only good breeding. His tutor recommends that he be sent to a university to develop an easier, more sociable manner.

He (eventually) slips into the social mix, becomes accepted as a "good chap" by his student peers, and falls deeply in love with Kathie (Ann Blyth), a pretty, popular, and musically inclined barmaid, who holds "court" in the local biergarten. Love notwithstanding, when his old grandfather dies unexpectedly, the young prince must marry the princess and take his place in the small kingdom that he is destined to rule. He returns for one last time to Heidelberg to bid Kathie a poignant farewell.

The parallel subplot of the princess being in love with Count Tarnitz, whom she cannot marry, was completely omitted from the film.

Cast

Production

The film featured, as the credits read, "the singing voice of Mario Lanza". Lanza had originally been cast as Prince Karl, but the temperamental singer had become embroiled in a bitter dispute with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was fired from the picture. Some sources state, however, that Lanza had voluntarily walked off the film.[2] Under the terms of the eventual settlement between MGM and Lanza, the studio retained the rights to use the songs for the film's soundtrack that Lanza had already recorded. The songs (including "Beloved" – written specially for the movie – and the well-remembered "Serenade", from the original show) would become some of those most identified with Lanza, even though they were mouthed in the film by Edmund Purdom, who took over the role of Prince Karl. Ann Blyth co-starred as Kathie. Blyth had played opposite Lanza in the 1951 blockbuster The Great Caruso. The film also featured Louis Calhern, John Ericson, Edmund Gwenn, S.Z. Sakall, Betta St. John, John Williams, Evelyn Varden and John Hoyt.

The picture was directed by Richard Thorpe (who replaced the original director, Curtis Bernhardt) and produced by Joe Pasternak. The screenplay was by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig and was based on the operetta The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly which was in turn based on the 1901 play Old Heidelberg by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster. New scenes and rewritten dialogue not found in the stage production were also added, although the basic plot remained the same. Additional songs were specially written by Nicholas Brodszky and Paul Francis Webster. Many of Ms. Donnelly's original stage lyrics were completely changed for the film. Owing to the story's popularity it has been turned into films on numerous occasions, including the American silent film Old Heidelberg (1915), the German silent film Old Heidelberg (1923), Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), and Ernst Marischka's Old Heidelberg (1959).

Reception

The film was a big hit - according to MGM records it made $2,528,000 in the US and Canada and $2,813,000 in other countries, resulting in a profit of $451,000.[1]

Soundtrack

RCA Victor issued two different recordings with Lanza of the songs from the film. The first, in 1954, was a genuine film soundtrack recording in monophonic sound. Rather than reissuing the original soundtrack in stereophonic sound (which would have been possible since the movie was filmed using 4-track stereo, and stereo records were released starting in 1958), RCA Victor recorded and released an all-new album in 1959. The original Dorothy Donnelly lyrics were restored to this album. Both the 1954 and 1959 albums, however, also included the three additional songs written specially for the film version ("Summertime in Heidelberg", "I'll Walk With God", and "Beloved"), and both albums omit the solo for Kathie, "Come Boys".

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study .
  2. ↑ https://books.google.bg/books?id=XD2xNKSN3E8C&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=S.Z.+Sakall+MGM+contract&source=bl&ots=jHKm47zkaj&sig=Tysf_qIKM6aZ-atQ1oscKZ_duaM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwxaaGhd_TAhXBQJoKHTSjB38Q6AEIODAD#v=onepage&q&f=false
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