Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Kellie Martin | ... | Gwen Cole | |
Simon Kassianides | ... | Percy / Flynn | |
Nick Ullett | ... | Wilkins | |
Kiernan Shipka | ... | Zoe Cole | |
Rod Myers | ... | Sam Simon | |
Shirley Benyas | ... | Mrs. Bieker | |
M.R. Wilson | ... | Detective Stanley Novak (as Michael Wilson) | |
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Emma-Lee Hess | ... | Kate |
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Caroline L Price | ... | Ruthie Novak (as Caroline Price) |
Dan Pesta | ... | Knight | |
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Rio Scafone | ... | Teacher |
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Olivia Wickline | ... | Witch / Mrs. Polanski |
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Erin Nicole | ... | Hilary Boswell |
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Geoffrey Beauchamp | ... | Duke of Hamm |
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Joanna Hastings | ... | Duchess of Hamm |
SMOOCH is a modern retelling of the classic Frog Prince tale with a romantic comedy twist. A rakishly handsome "English Royal" comes to America for an arranged marriage, and ends up being mugged in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and left with amnesia. A precocious 11-year-girl, who can't bring herself to dissect a frog in science class, goes to the park with the intent of setting it free, and through a serendipitous misunderstanding thinks she turned the frog into a man after kissing the frog's boo-boo away with a kind smooch. She brings him home and soon realizes the only way she can "keep him" is to have the man impersonate a "Royal Nanny" and convince her beautiful widowed mother to hire him. With the clock ticking and his royal family searching for him, the man - whose memory eventually returns to him - falls hard for the girl's mom, and it seems like a Valentines Day dream come true until he's found by his family and is forced to finally stop being a bit of a "toady"... and ... Written by Anonymous
This is a cute little TV movie in the "Miracle on 34th Street" vein. Besides some rather amusing acting -- particularly Simon Kassianides as a Marquis or perhaps Prince who prefers to get drunk and fall into an amnesiac fugue rather than marry his horror of a social-climbing fiancée, and Kiernan Shipka as a straightforward young girl who would rather believe in magic than live a rather empty life, there is plenty of subtext in this movie about hope, expectations and San Francisco -- although that highly cinematic town is not shown to any advantage. Surely a few more original pickup shots could have been arranged.
The romantic interest is provided by Kellie Martin, who is directed in the manner typical of a Hallmark TV romcom: brittle, fast-talking and ready to fall. There won't be much in the way of surprises in this work, but a light, almost negligent handling of the issues by director Ron Oliver keeps things moving along at a decent clip