Trivia / The Swan

• All-Star Cast: Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Agnes Moorehead, Jessie Royce Landis, Brian Aherne, Leo G. Carroll, Estelle Winwood, Van Dyke Parks...
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Rights to the play were bought specifically so they could develop a vehicle for Grace Kelly.
• Life Imitates Art: Grace Kelly naturally quite famously became Princess of Monaco the year this film was released. It was even released on her wedding day. She would later name her son Albert after the prince in this movie.
• Role Reprise: This was actually the second time that Grace Kelly had starred in an adaptation of the Hungarian play, after a CBS television production in 1950 that's now considered lost.
• Similarly Named Works: No relation to the 2000s reality series The Swan.
• Typecasting: Jessie Royce Landis also played Grace Kelly's mother in To Catch a Thief.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Rex Harrison was first cast in the role of Prince Albert, but he and the studio couldn't come to a proper agreement, so he was replaced with Alec Guinness in his Hollywood debut.
  • Director Charles Vidor later said that they were keeping a close eye on the romance between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend in case they had to change the ending.
  "If they had wed we would have thought very seriously about changing our ending", he said. "However, by not marrying a commoner made our Swan a new, modern story. Now they can't say it's old-fashioned."