In the twilight of the operetta movie came the finest of them all: "The Student Prince". Real life has no place here, it's splendour, carnival, youthful exuberance and doomed romance, featuring a beautiful female lead and a handsome leading man, both of them singing beautifully. Ann Blyth does her own, very nice singing, and Edmund Purdom channels Mario Lanza's recorded voice. It is an unforgettable score, including both Romberg songs and a couple of new ones for the film composed by Nicolas Brodzsky. The story is a simple one, the sets and costumes beautiful, and the dialogue pithy and quite witty in parts. These days I think we are a lot less likely to swallow the idea of princes having to marry to order, and I have to say that there is some quite rough manhandling of "Kathi" by her prince which I don't like to see. I also take a jaundiced view of student drinking culture, alive and well in Australia and pretty ugly and sordid if you have a close-up encounter. Otherwise this film is one of my favourites, as are the recordings by Lanza. Do yourself a favour, and find a recording of "Just We Two" sung by Lanza (years later) but not in the film as it was never a song for the Prince's character. I love "The Student Prince" and would like to give it a 10 but will wrench one point away as a penalty for the non-PC aspects.
Review of The Student Prince
