A Breath of Scandal

A Breath of Scandal (released as Olympia in Italy) is a 1960 American/Italian international co-production romantic comedy-drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the stage play Olympia by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, and John Gavin, with Angela Lansbury, Milly Vitale, Roberto Risso, Isabel Jeans, and Tullio Carminati. The film is set at the turn of the 20th century and features lush technicolor photography of Vienna and the countryside of Austria. The costumes and lighting were designed by George Hoyningen-Huene and executed by Ella Bei of the Knize fashion house (Austria). In part because Loren was at odds with Curtiz's direction, Italian director Vittorio De Sica was hired to reshoot certain scenes with Loren after hours without Curtiz's knowledge. The film is based on the 1928 play Olympia rather than being a remake of the 1929 MGM film His Glorious Night. Plot In 1907, a widowed Princess Olympia of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been banished from the Imperial Court to her late husband's country estate. The bored Princess spends her time improving her rifle marksmanship by using flowers, statues and the postman as her targets. When she tires of that, being an expert equestrienner as well as an expert markswoman, she rides a wild stallion to her hunting lodge. On the way she is thrown from her mount by the appearance of an automobile driven by a visiting American mining engineer Charlie Foster. She feigns injury to get to know Charlie better as she keeps her royal heritage a secret from him, for Charlie believes her a peasant. Treating her with his first aid expertise, Charlie gives her his own pyjamas but mistakenly gives her a sleeping pill with a glass of wine that sends Olympia into a deep sleep. Waking in Charlie's pyjama top, but not the bottom, Olympia fears the worst has happened and flees back home where news as arrived that she is able to return to the Imperial Court in Vienna. Olympia is greeted by the news by her mother that she is to be married to Prince Ruprecht of Prussia. She is also reunited with Charlie who has come to see her father Prince Philip about mining and refining bauxite in the Empire. Her rival Countess Lina is determined to ruin Princess Olympia's life by informing the Imperial Chamberlain Count Sandor of Olympia's scandalous conduct with the American.