THE MONTE CARLO STORY: it's a bitch not being rich

Let's get one thing straight right from the start. THE MONTE CARLO STORY is not the story of Monte Carlo. It's a story set in Monte Carlo, although most of it was actually filmed on soundstages at a studio in Rome.

The story is of two middle aged people - played by Marlene Dietrich and Vittorio De Sica - who used to be rich but aren't anymore because they gambled away their wealth. Unable to adapt to their new reality they sponge off their considerably less fortunate friends to maintain at least the facade of a lifestyle they can no longer afford.
There's two ways of looking at this story.
1. Isn't it endearing that these two sweet, charming, well meaning people find each other and, with the emotional and financial support of caring friends, are able to transcend their monetary problems and find true love.
2. The boorish, patronising behaviour of these fortune-hunting social parasites is nauseating. They exploit their air of superior breeding to leech off the workers, taking their money and goodwill in return for a space at the window where they can look in at a world they can service but never enter.
I'm no revolutionary but I found the condescending manner of de Sica's penniless Italian Count increasingly infuriating. No one would have seen his predicament as half as charming if he'd been a waiter or taxi driver who'd lost all his money gambling, and refused to get a job to try and help himself because "work is something I have no aptitude for."
The servile acquiescence of his working class friends is sickening. They are continually scraping together a few hundred francs so he can play at being a playboy in Monaco's swanky casinos, but there's never a sense that these people are really his friends. He treats them more as trusty retainers there to respond to his every whim.
Dietrich's character is at least a little more upfront about her gold-digging. She checks in to the 5-star hotel without a franc to her name, trading on her former reputation as a lady of means to get a suite, and the best table in the restaurant. She's far from home so there's no retinue of devoted friends to support her lifestyle. Instead she's forced to exploit a pawnbroker who's lent her jewels to wear to boost the illusion she's still a wealthy woman.
There's precious little chemistry between Dietrich and De Sica. They both appear to be too much in love with themselves to have any real affection left over for anyone else, and they don't do much more than go through the motions of falling for each other with little genuine enthusiasm. Dietrich looks her age - she was 56 when this was made in 1957 - and there's not much left of the magical allure which had made her such a seductive presence on-screen for the previous 3 decades. Indeed, THE MONTE CARLO STORY was to be her penultimate leading role. After starring in 'Witness for the Prosecution' immediately following this film she would make cameos in just 2 more movies before retiring from the screen while her legend was still more or less intact.
Other than the few glimpses it affords of a Monte Carlo that was still surprisingly sleepy and unspoiled despite the recent arrival of Grace Kelly as the new wife of Prince Rainier, there's not much reason to sit through this film. It's slow, boring, predictable and - worst of all - smug.