The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (1926) - DVD Review
The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (1926) is based on a play by Alfred Savoir which ran on Broadway for a mere 31 performances. The Broadway play starred Elsie Ferguson and Basil Rathbone as the Duchess and Waiter, respectively. The plot was scripted in 3 acts, and according to this brief synopsis from The Best Plays of 1925, one wonders how it was stretched into 3 acts. Basil Rathbone and Elsie Ferguson ( Museum of the City of NY ) “ The Grand Duchess Xenia, run out of Russia by the Bolshevists, is staying at a Swiss hotel with a small but loyal band of royal relatives, living on her pawned jewels. Albert, the waiter, falls hopelessly in love with her and she undertakes to cure his passion by making him a sort of valet de chambre and submitting him to the most humiliating of intimacies. Then she confesses her love and learns that he is the son of the president of the Swiss republic learning the hotel business from the rugs up. She hates and dismisses him for being a republican, but he
