starring Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., David Niven, and Raymond Massey
Families looking for movie entertainment that insults neither their morals, their intelligence, nor their aesthetics can often do no better than go to the vaults for the vintage products—those great old films from the Silent era through the Forties, usually in black and white, filmed when the industry was still young and had not yet discovered Irony—that powerful narrative acid, sometimes useful but more often than not, deadly.
One of the great stars of that era was Ronald Colman—a Silent era heartthrob whose beautiful voice enabled him to make the often dodgy transition to Talkies. And a hearthrob Colman remained, well into his sixties—leastways if you question the Murphy women.
The Prisoner of Zenda, based on the classic adventure novel by Anthony Hope, tells the unlikely but for all that delightful tale of Maj. Rudolf Rassendyll, whose intended fishing vacation in the charming little country of Zenda (presumably some tidbit of the then Austro-Hungarian empire) is turned into a life-and-death game of deception and kidnapping when it is discovered that he is as good as an identical twin to the country’s Prince Rupert, who is to be crowned king the day after Rassendyll arrives. (Turns out that the pair are actually distant cousins, due to an ancestral indiscretion between Maj. Rassendyll’s great-great-grandmother and Prince Rupert’s great-great grandfather, or some such thing.)
The salient point is that when Prince Rupert’s scheming half-brother, Michael (Raymond Massey), has him drugged and kidnapped in hopes of preventing his being crowned, Rassendyll is drafted by Rupert’s loyal aides to take his place until the real King can be rescued. Naturally complications ensue, one of the foremost being that Maj. Rassendyll falls in love with King Rupert’s intended, the beautiful Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll.)
This 1937 movie was elegantly directed by John Cromwell and filmed in stunning black and white by master cinematographer James Wong Howe. But its main asset, in my view, is an almost embarrassing abundance of acting talent. Besides Colman, who has the refinement, wit and gravitas that makes one long for the good old days when heroes were also Gentlemen, or were at least expected to act like one, there is also the commanding Raymond Massey as Black Michael and a young (and very sweet) David Niven as one of Rupert’s aides. Nor can too much be said, least of all in a movie that involves swordplay, of Colman’s primary cinematic foil, the devilishly charming Douglas Fairbanks, Jr as Black Michael’s conscienceless henchman, Prince Rupert of Hentzau. One waits for their inevitable face-off (with swords, yeah!) with keen anticipation for the better part of the movie, and it does not disappoint.
Clan Murphy strongly recommends that all movie lovers go on a quest to unearth all available Ronald Colman movies, both silent and Talkie, and Zenda, though not the very best of them, is a great place to start.