My brain sometimes makes up stories for titles that have no actual bearing on the story that the title is attached to. It's awfully good at this. And often wrong.
A few years ago, my friend DKoren read the book The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope and told me I absolutely had to read it because it was a rip-roaring good swashbuckler. Not at all what I had anticipated, since my brain had made up this wholly fake story about the title. I gave it a whirl, as I almost always enjoy the things DKoren says I will. And I loved it!
Just so we are clear: Zenda is a castle. Not a woman. A man is kept prisoner in the castle by his half-brother, not by a woman. The story my brain invented is completely unrelated to the book or movie. Which is great, because I didn't want to see a movie about the story I made up, or read the book!
After I read the book, I watched the 1937 adaptation, which stars Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Madeleine Carroll. My DVD copy came as a two-pack, with the 1952 adaptation on a second disc. So, not long after, I watched that too.
Oddly enough, the 1952 version is shot from the exact same shooting script as the 1937. The lines are basically the same, the shots are composed the same way, the whole thing is a very close match, except for the cast being different, and the fact that the 1952 version is color instead of black-and-white. This threw me off-balance the first time I watched it, but now I have seen the 1952 version seven or eight times, and watching the 1937 will probably throw me off balance instead!
The basic story is this:
Sometime during the Victorian Era, a wealthy British man of the world, Rudolf Rassendyll (Stewart Granger), goes on a fishing tour of Europe and crosses into the small country of Ruritania just before its new king is to be crowned.
Rassendyll has a bit of a connection to Ruritania: his great-great-something-grandparent was a wrong-side-of-the-blanket child of a long-ago Ruritanian king. He's reminded of this when he's fishing away at a peaceful mountain stream and encounters two Ruritanian officers, Colonel Zapt (Louis Calhern) and Fritz von Tarlenheim (Robert Coote) who are astonished by his appearance.
The reason pops up in a couple of minutes in the form of a distant cousin also named Rudolf (also Stewart Granger) who is about to be crowned king of Ruritania.
Rassendyll accepts his relative's offer of a night's lodging in the royal hunting lodge. The two drink and feast themselves into oblivion. When Rassendyll wakes up, the future king is dead drunk and unable to be wakened. Zapt and Fritz are frantic, because if their Rudolf isn't crowned king that very day, his vile half-brother Black Michael (Robert Douglas) will claim Rudolf isn't fit for the throne and take it himself. And destroy the country.
Fritz and Zapt beg Rassendyll to impersonate Rudolf just long enough to be crowned in his stead, and then he can go his merry way as soon as they find the real king. All he'll really have to sacrifice is his mustache.
Of course, it's not that simple. Rudolf is promptly kidnapped by Black Michael and his henchman Rupert of Hentzou (James Mason), who keep him a prisoner in, you guessed it, the castle Zenda. Black Michael is super shocked when Rudolf appears to get crowned after all!
Also, King Rudolf is betrothed to Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr), and Rassendyll is smitten with her on sight. The longer it takes to find the real King Rudolf, the harder it becomes for Rassendyll to give up Flavia, whom he quickly grows to love.
(SPOILER) One of the things I love best about this story is that Rassendyll and Flavia do the right thing, not the easy thing. They are a great lesson that personal emotions and feelings are not the most important things in the world -- that truth, honor, and integrity can mean more. (END SPOILER)
One of the most interesting differences between the 1952 and 1937 versions is the attitudes of Rudolf Rassendyll and Rupert of Hentzou. In the 1937, Rassendyll is serious and kind of cunning; Rupert is witty, charming, and a devil-may-care. In the 1952, Rassendyll is witty, charming, and jaunty; Rupert is snide, sly, and acidic. That does make both movies feel enough different from each other that you can't really say one is a carbon copy of the other.
Also, I really wish there were more scenes of the two Rudolfs hanging out because they seem to get along quite nicely. And the movie magic in the scenes where Stewart Granger shares the screen with himself delights me every time.
Is this movie family friendly? Basically, yes. There's a mention of Rassendyll's forebear having an illegitimate child, and Black Michael is also an illegitimate child, which gets mentioned in the kind of oblique way you'd expect from a Code Era movie. There's no cussing. Princess Flavia and Antoinette do show off some cleavage in their period-appropriate costumes. There's some kissing and sighing and yearning. Rupert of Hentzou gets away with a bit of snide innuendo here and there. It has quite a bit of swordplay and some gunplay. My daughters were in single digits when they first saw and loved it.
This is a one-day-late contribution to the 2026 Classic Literature on Film Blogathon hosted by Paul at Silver Screen Classics.
