Review of The Ambassador's Daughter

Excruciating romantic comedy wherein the romance is applied by cutting to close-ups of star Olivia de Havilland gazing at her G.I. with stars in her eyes while the comedy never happens because this is hermetically-sealed 1956 and people were, of course, respectable! Olivia is out to prove to her Ambassador father that not all soldiers are "muckers" (or, wolves); she makes a date with soldier John Forsythe under the guise of a French model (!) while Forsythe's chatty buddy (who sounds like he's auditioning for a cartoon voice-over job) gets chummy with a senator and his wife. This may be the worst role eternally clean-cut Forsythe ever got; his pushy Sgt. Sullivan has a confrontation with every person he talks to. Perhaps writer-director Norman Krasna thought the sergeant should be intense and humorless--the exact opposite of randy--but Forsythe ends up looking like a deer in the headlights. Misguided effort is 'plushy' but contains not a single laugh or engaging character (although Myrna Loy tries). It looks good in widescreen but the script is a piece of lead, insulting to everyone from French fan dancers to bagpipe players to horny American G.I.s who can't even take in a show without arguing with the maître d' over their restaurant cover charge. * from ****