The Prince and the Showgirl isn't a great film, or a great comedy, but it's light, fun, colorful, and it gives you the pleasant feeling of attending a fairly ordinary little four-act farce in a comfortable, luxurious theater.<br /><br />If you're looking for a comedy with substance, this isn't it; but if you're in the mood for pretty costumes, Monroe being deliciously sexy, and a cute little farce, this can be lots of fun for you.<br /><br />However, there is one role and one performance in this film that makes it an absolute must for at least one viewing, and that is the hilariously funny, and PERFECTLY executed comedy of Dame Sybil Thorndike, who plays the role of a South Slavic Queen Dowager who is "a little vague"--as Marilyn Monroe, in the role of Elsie Marina says after meeting her, "a LITTLE vague?!" She's quite, quite nuts, delightfully so, has all the very best lines of the play, and delivers each gesture, each look, each utterance with such crystalline perfection and astoundingly skilled stagecraft, that you can do naught but marvel at her powers. She has only four or five very brief scenes, and yet, she manages to turn her little part into award-winning material.<br /><br />It's a great illustration of Stanislavsky's dictum that "there are no small parts--only small actors." Anyway, you haven't enjoyed Dame Sybil Thorndike at her comic best without seeing this movie, so put up with the rest of it, if you don't like it--you cannot leave this earth without drinking the nectar of her playing this role. And if you don't expect too much of it, you'll like the rest of this movie, too.