Éducation de prince (1938)
Directed by Alexander Esway

Film Review

A stellar cast is somewhat wasted on this middling comedy which recycles the old Ruritania plot ideas that continued to infect cinema long after Anthony Hope's novel The Prisoner of Zenda had its first screen adaptation.  Éducation de prince is in fact based on a play by Maurice Donnay, which had previously been adapted by Henri Diamant-Berger in 1927.  The script was written (with little in the way of flair and originality) by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Carlo Rim, who would both go on to become capable film  directors.  Alexandre Esway directs the film with his customary workmanlike lack of inspiration, showing even less flair for comedy than he would do on his subsequent Fernandel comedies Barnabé (1938) and Hercule (1939).

The film's charms lie not in its rehashed plot, which serves up the usual morass of clichés and caricatures, but in its starry cast, headed by an impeccable Louis Jouvet, who provides most of the well-restrained laughs as a pompous purveyor of court etiquette.  André Alerme is occasionally amusing as a greedy financier who is driven to desperate measures to rescue his ailing cash-flows and Charpin makes a welcome albeit somewhat superfluous appearance as Alerme's moral opposite, an honest sort who enjoys the simple pleasures in life.  A bevy of beauties - Elvire Popesco, Josette Day and Mireille Perrey - provide no shortage of glamour, but the star of the film is 18-year-old Robert Lynen who, as the titular prince, is the only cast member to shine in this lacklustre timewaster.

Film Synopsis

Silistria, a small country in the Balkans, is in a state of permanent revolution, which is not good for business.  The financier Chautard is the man who suffers most from this neverending succession of coups d'états.  Every time there is a change of government, he has to renegotiate his contracts to exploit the country's mineral wealth, a costly and time-consuming business.  Deciding that this cannot go on, Chautard intends to have the royal family of Silistria reinstated.  Presently, they are living as poor exiles in Paris.  The queen, Sophie, continues to live her extravagant lifestyle by handing out titles instead of cash to her dressmakers and grocers, whilst her son Sacha, now in his late teens, attends a Parisian college where he gets caught up in the usual student hi-jinks, including political demonstrations.  To make Sacha a suitable monarch for his country, Chautard engages the services of René Cercleux, who will teach him all he needs to know about royal etiquette and deportment.  Unfortunately, Sacha has little enthusiasm for returning to Silistria as he has fallen in love with Marianne, a girl of his own age who has no fortune of her own.  She is merely the daughter of a poor but contented toy maker, Monsieur Honorat - hardly a suitable consort for a young prince...