After another dissolve, he was viewed at a medium distance as he was picked up in an open convertible by socially-prominent and aristocratic Dr.Dobisch (Ray Walston) - he is phoning from a bar on 61st Street with a blonde who "looks like Marilyn Monroe" [a not-so-subtle critique of Wilder""s difficult star performer inSome Like It Hot (1959)] with a late-night request to borrow the apartment for forty-five minutes - the bargain is sweetened up with another deal and hint of promotion: "Look Baxter, we""re making out the monthly efficiency rating, and I""m putting you in the top en.Immediately after the song ends, the white-suited, large man offers to buy the cafe - an offer that he has made (and had rejected) numerous times.A few days later, the busybody, garrulous and eccentric neighbor Minnie, with her hair up in an odd, white polka-dotted scarf, pays a visit.Lord Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (Lewis Stone), the regent and head of the council, announces that after the "grievous war" - a war that has lasted fourteen years while Sweden fought "for he Protestant cause," the King has died.