George Ade

The Slim Princess George Ade

In the fictional land of Morovenia, where large women are considered beautiful while thin ones are unattractive, the 'slim princess' Kalora struggles to attract a suitor until she meets a brash young American. The life of 'The Slim Princess' began in the fertile imagination of the humorist George Ade, (1866-1944) Ade's humor is very much in the traditions of Mark Twain. Ade was a master of American Slang, and has been said to purvey the American colloquial vernacular with sheer masterly turn of phase, his 'Fables in Slang' was one of the important Chicago satires. This story of Princess Kalora came from a different time and in many respects was written in a very different language. The Slim Princess is a 1920 American comedy film starring Mabel Normand, directed by Victor Schertzinger, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and written by Gerald C. Duffy based on a musical play of the same name by Henry Blossom and Leslie Stuart, which was from a story by George Ade. The picture is a Goldwyn Pictures Corporation production with a supporting cast featuring Hugh Thompson, Tully Marshall, Russ Powell, Lillian Sylvester, and Harry Lorraine. As described in a film magazine, Princess Kalora (Normand) of Morovenia, a fictional country where obese women are prized and the normal-sized princess is widely regarded as being too slender, finds no suitors in the matrimonial market. Her younger sister, weighing in the neighborhood of 300 pounds and who is also the family favorite, is sought by the eligible men of the court. American millionaire Alexander Pike (Thompson) sees the princess and immediately falls in love with her, and is then hounded from the country by the police of her father. The princess is later sent to America to partake of a patent fat producer that is widely advertised, and meets Alexander at the Ambassador's ball. Their romance is interrupted when a cable calls the princess and her bodyguard back to Morovenia.