The Prince and the Showgirl

Another Marilyn

Contrary to what the title might suggest, The Prince and the Showgirl is not merely a conventional romantic narrative similar to a fairy tale. The 1957 feature film was the first to be conceived and produced under the Marilyn Monroe Productions banner and serves primarily as a work of self-assertion. Through this film, the actress—historically confined by the industry to the image of a passive sex symbol—sought to regain control of her professional career, which until then had been monopolised by Hollywood’s rigid guidelines.

Directed by and co-starring Laurence Olivier, with a screenplay by Terence Rattigan based on his play The Sleeping Prince, the film served as a practical testing ground for Monroe’s transition. Initially, the plot presents the same dynamic of underestimation that characterised the actress’s career: the narrative introduces Elsie Marina, an American chorus girl passing through London, who is received by the Prince Regent Charles with the disdain usually reserved for women of her class and profession. The staging of the opening scenes in the palace visually and textually underscores this hierarchy: Elsie is positioned as an ornament, a fleeting nocturnal distraction for the Prince Regent. And here it is curious to note how the friction present in the fiction mirrored the reality behind the scenes: Olivier himself, at first, looked down on the actress, treating her working method with impatience and condescension during filming. It was only years later that the director publicly acknowledged his mistake, admitting Monroe’s comedic genius and the undeniable power of her screen presence. However, the development of the plot actively subverts the archetype of naivety that both the industry and, initially, her own director imposed on the actress.

This subversion of stereotypes is brought to life through the editing and the dynamics of the scenes in which the protagonist asserts her intellectual autonomy, whether by refusing to interfere in the political machinations of the Carpathian court, or by asserting her independence through her refusal to participate in the dynamics that reduce her to the status of an object. Far from being a passive element, Elsie’s apparent alienation proves to be an analytical tool. The narrative contrast reaches its peak, for example, in the sequences in which she reveals her command of the German language, both to the king and to Olivier’s character. When Elsie breaks through this language barrier, she not only alters the course of the dialogues but also destabilises the hierarchies within both scenes. Monroe’s performance in these moments marks the transition from a supposedly vague demeanour to an active stance, one that is conscious of her position and importance.

Navigating these palace intrigues, the chorus girl takes on the role of mediator. Her agency in scenes of conflict does not stem from imposed force, but from a relational intelligence that the statesmen lack. It is Elsie who realises that the political crisis between the regent’s authoritarianism and the young king’s impetus for rebellion is, at its root, an emotional rift. In facilitating the dialogue between father and son, she employs a diplomatic acumen that circumvents the institutional rigidity of the palace. The intellect, therefore, shifts the female body from the position of a passive fetish to that of a subject of political action and narrative resolution.

The definitive refusal to accept a subordinate position is crystallised in the final sequence. The conclusion rejects the conciliatory and moralising resolution typical of the genre. The camera captures the moment of farewell not as a romantic defeat, but as a statement of principle. Rather than yielding to the structure in which the common woman abandons her identity to be absorbed and silenced by royalty (the classic Cinderella complex), Elsie chooses to return to her work in the theatre. The staging of her departure establishes that maintaining her autonomy is non-negotiable. Any continuation of her feelings for the conductor would have to be based on a premise of equality, rejecting the framework of paternalistic rescue.

When analysing this stance of narrative independence in direct parallel with the professional context experienced by the actress herself during that period, the character’s unyielding position reflects the drive that led to the founding of her production company. The creation of Marilyn Monroe Productions was the means found to bring about a break with the 20th Century Fox studio system, which confined her to exploitative contracts and shallow roles. By demanding control over the script and direction, Monroe made a statement about her ownership of her own image. Thus, the film transcends the comedy of manners to document a historic transition in cinema. By deconstructing the stereotype of the vulnerable blonde through her own performance, a different Marilyn emerges on screen. Having become inextricably linked to the role of producer and strategist, Monroe used fiction to document her own emancipation, demonstrating that behind the surface moulded by the industry lay a woman in control of her own gaze and her own destiny.