Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 3-May-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Ambassador's Daughter (1956)

The most readily available print of The Ambassador's Daughter is of atrocious quality. I am mildly surprised that a movie boasting such an impressive cast has been neglected. Legends Olivia de Havilland and Myrna Loy are backed by classic gents Adolphe Menjou and Edward Arnold, along with an engaging John Forsythe as the male star. Yet if fine old actors are a good reason for restoration, they are not the chief incentive for watching this film. That honor goes to the movie's perfect illustration of an odd trait of the U.S. mindset.

The plot is set in motion when upper-crust Americans decide to amuse themselves with a combination social experiment and wager. Menjou is a senator in Paris with his wife (Loy) who wants to ban U.S. soldiers from visiting the city while on leave. He believes that GIs are too vulgar and Paris too suited for debauchery. Arnold is the U.S. ambassador to France who opposes this plan and hopes to dissuade the senator while serving as his host. At age 40, de Havilland is miscast in the title role as a "girl" under her father's wing preoccupied with future nuptials and the children she might someday have. One wonders if the personal dynamics would appear more natural with Elizabeth Taylor in the lead.

When the ambassador's daughter catches the eye of a U.S. soldier (Forsythe), she suggests to her clique that she go out with him, masquerading as a French model, and report back on his behavior. If the soldier is respectful, the senator might abandon his plan; if he is fresh, the ambassador will concede that GIs should be barred from temptation. The elite group goes so far as to enslave the soldier's comic buddy (Tommy Noonan) so that he does not interfere with the experiment. They resemble nothing so much as Greek gods, utterly at ease with manipulating puny humans' lives to suit their own whims. It never occurs to a single one of them to feel guilty about deceiving and marginalizing the soldier, even after the daughter inevitably falls in love with him.

Descending largely from Old World stock and deprived of home-grown royalty, Americans are primed to accept such arrogance in people with wealth and European sophistication. What is interesting is how this impulse (apparently shared by writer/director Norman Krasna) fits side-by-side with another American sentiment. The heroine is engaged to a limp member of the French nobility, and the movie makes clear that she would do better with a red-blooded, no-nonsense Yankee who prefers apple pie to caviar. Although her admiration of Forsythe drips with condescension, it is admiration nevertheless: for the fact that he remembers his family, blushes at the sight of topless can-can dancers, and is not the sort of guy to catch the clap in ports of call. The Ambassador's Daughter confidently assumes that his vindication of the worth of GI Joe complements the conceit of his lady and her kind.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.