Not for the last time Ronald Colman plays a double role in this grand old Hollywood actioner from the Golden Era. He's the grandly-named Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll, visiting the remote (but still English-speaking!) country of Zenda who gets caught up in a plot to usurp the country's feckless and ill-prepared Prince, soon-to-be-King, also named Rudolf, to whom he bears a remarkable resemblance. The would-be usurper is the Prince's dastardly brother Michael, Raymond Massey, who'll stop at nothing to see himself on the throne and who employs the rascally Douglas Fairbanks Jr's Rupert of Hentzau as his ambitious, scheming but dangerous right hand man to kidnap the monarch.
When their plan to have the King miss his coronation ceremony, which apparently would mean him forfeiting his right to the throne, is thwarted after His Majesty's two faithful retainers played by C Aubrey Smith and a young David Niven, talk Rassendyll into impersonating the King on the day, Rudolf has to continue on in the role until the King can be found and rescued.
Playing the part of the king also sees him introduced to the latter's betrothed, Madeleine Carroll as Princess Flavia, who after steeling herself to simply live with rather than love the shallow Prince for whom she's been groomed, now falls in love with the impersonator, and he her, to further complicate matters.
In the end, it will take a daring rescue mission and a final reckoning between Rudolf and Rupert, then a postscript with Flavia to tie up all the loose ends before the hero literally rides away into the sunset and order is restored to Zenda once again.
I read this book as a boy and also loved the later, Technicolour, more swashbuckling version of this story starring Stewart Grainger and James Mason but there's much to commend this black and white predecessor, not least James Wong Howe's wonderful way with lighting as head cameraman.
Colman is excellent as the king and his lookalike, Carroll charms in a rather decorative part, while Fairbanks plays the part of the roguish Hentzau with relish. Smith and Niven, as you'd expect, carry off their stiff-upper-lip parts even if they seem much more English than Zendan in the process. Director Cromwell does a good job as lord protector of the story, inserting some imaginative camera set-ups as well as handling the twin-exposures of Colman with ease.
Yes, the language is a bit flowery at times and I both chuckled and winced at the epithets Colman and Fairbanks Jr threw at each other while supposedly trying to kill one another in their climactic fence-off, but this grand old story can stand different tellings and this was a good a way as any, in my book.
When their plan to have the King miss his coronation ceremony, which apparently would mean him forfeiting his right to the throne, is thwarted after His Majesty's two faithful retainers played by C Aubrey Smith and a young David Niven, talk Rassendyll into impersonating the King on the day, Rudolf has to continue on in the role until the King can be found and rescued.
Playing the part of the king also sees him introduced to the latter's betrothed, Madeleine Carroll as Princess Flavia, who after steeling herself to simply live with rather than love the shallow Prince for whom she's been groomed, now falls in love with the impersonator, and he her, to further complicate matters.
In the end, it will take a daring rescue mission and a final reckoning between Rudolf and Rupert, then a postscript with Flavia to tie up all the loose ends before the hero literally rides away into the sunset and order is restored to Zenda once again.
I read this book as a boy and also loved the later, Technicolour, more swashbuckling version of this story starring Stewart Grainger and James Mason but there's much to commend this black and white predecessor, not least James Wong Howe's wonderful way with lighting as head cameraman.
Colman is excellent as the king and his lookalike, Carroll charms in a rather decorative part, while Fairbanks plays the part of the roguish Hentzau with relish. Smith and Niven, as you'd expect, carry off their stiff-upper-lip parts even if they seem much more English than Zendan in the process. Director Cromwell does a good job as lord protector of the story, inserting some imaginative camera set-ups as well as handling the twin-exposures of Colman with ease.
Yes, the language is a bit flowery at times and I both chuckled and winced at the epithets Colman and Fairbanks Jr threw at each other while supposedly trying to kill one another in their climactic fence-off, but this grand old story can stand different tellings and this was a good a way as any, in my book.