The Princess Comes Across (1936)

Starring Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Douglass Dumbrille, Alison Skipworth, George Barbier
Directed by William K. Howard
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

While a bandleader tries to get closer to a glamorous Swedish princess aboard a cruise ship, a notorious escaped convict has also snuck aboard, and tries to evade police officials aboard the boat.

Another winning teaming of Lombard and MacMurray highlights this shipboard tale, but the murder mystery plot is what kept me engaged, well-scripted and convincingly presented by cast and crew.  Lombard has fun playing the exotic princess, with an accent and manner reminiscent of Garbo, and my friend Dan Day Jr. also pointed out she may have been poking a bit of fun at  Marlene Dietrich's portrayals.  MacMurray starts out as an irreverent cocky sort, and his early antics make us think this will be a comedy of errors, but the film and the actor quickly move into serious territory once the story's murder occurs.  Also joining the duo are Skipworth as Lombard's lady-in-waiting and Fred Mertz as MacMurray's sidekick, plus a quartet of police officials determined to solve the crime but who will need MacMurray's help to bait the trap for the murderer.  It's sort of an unusual format for the romantic couple, but I enjoyed the departures from the norm.