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Fantastic!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Stewart Granger plays twin roles. An Englishman called Rassendyll on a fishing trip to a small European kingdom of Ruritania and gets strange looks from the locals. This is because he looks a lot like the new King Rudolf, a distant cousin of his. After a night of partying with the king, Rassendyll soon discovers that thanks to the king's brother their is intrigue to wrest the crown from the decadent Rudolf before his coronation. Rassendyll agrees to step into the place of the King to keep the country steady. He falls in love with Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr) while dastardly Rupert of Hentzau (James Mason) also wants to take control of the kingdom.This is a lavish Technicolor remake of the Ronald Colman version, a faithful pedestrian remake though. It should had been more cavalier but Mason makes a sinister villain and there is plenty of swashbuckling.

"The prisoner of Zenda" (1952) is a wonderful swashbuckler ,a movie the whole family can enjoy! I've already seen it three or four times and I've never got tired of it.Stewart Granger is absolutely perfect as the hero,playing two parts with gusto:I love the crowning where he manages to be as majestic as a king and yet shows he is not completely at ease ;his waltz with Deborah Kerr is also a great moment.James Mason vies with Robert Douglas in wickedness ,greed and Machiavelism.Deborah Kerr is gorgeous as Princess Flavia.This kind of story belongs to an imaginary remote past -although it is supposed to happen in 1897-like the fairy tales.That's why "the prisoner" is so magical.

Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll travels to see his distant relative King Rudolf V. When he arrives in the country he gets some funny looks and, when he meets King Rudolf he understands why – they are the total spit of one another, apart from a moustache. The two men spend all night drinking, a habit King Rudolf is oft to entertain but Rassendyll is a light weight and has fallen asleep long before the final bottles are opened. The next morning he wakes up with a sore head but the King is out for the count for much longer due to a drugged bottle of wine – the work of his brother Michael, who seeks to claim the throne in the chaos that he hopes will follow the cancellation of the day's coronation. Rassendyll steps into the place of the King in a cunning ploy to keep the country steady; however he finds himself in the midst of a much more serious ploy than drugged wine.Despite the fact that it has been made many times, I must confess to this being the first time I've seen this story told. I must also confess that for the most part I found it quite dull. On paper I can see how fascinating it could have been because it has political intrigue, betrayals, sword fights and action. However the film opens with a sort of criss-cross humour that didn't really engage me at all. It wasn't funny and it seemed to undercut the serious business of telling a good yarn. Things get a bit better once the villains turn up but even then I was surprised by how plodding it was all delivered. The final scenes were pretty good and it was a welcome arrival for sword fighting in a very talky film but I did wish there had been a bit more swagger to the rest of the film, if not actually action.The cast are reasonably good. Granger does well but his sudden transformation from innocent abroad into action hero at the end was a gear change too much. Kerr is pretty but mostly pretty bland. Calhern is solid and Greer was a strange find. I liked Douglas but it was Mason who dominated the film. He seems a bit out of place but he has some great lines and generally he looks like he is having fun and not taking any of it too seriously. He is a breath of fresh air among the rest of the stiff material and he stole every scene he was in.A good story then but delivered in a rather flat and dull fashion that put me off early on and never really got me back. It all looks good in glorious Technicolor but other than that the only other thing that kept me with it was a delicious little turn from Mason, who at least has the good taste to have a bit of fun – something that I had hoped to do myself but sadly did not.

On the face of it, "The Prisoner of Zenda" has everything a swashbuckler could require to make it a glorious success: a star-studded cast with previous form, Technicolour pageantry, MGM production values, an Alfred Newman score, a classic story of self-sacrificing heroism... not to mention a setting that's not only generically but genuinely Ruritanian! But on viewing it again after a lapse of some years, I find that it still doesn't work for me; and there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason why.There were in fact *two* films released in 1952 starring Stewart Granger in sword-fighting heroics: one of them -- enchanting, bittersweet, dancing of wit and of blade, and featuring what was to become one of the most famous fight sequences in screen history -- was, of course, "Scaramouche". The other was "The Prisoner of Zenda"... and somehow, in every aspect that melded together to produce the classic that was its counterpart, it never quite catches up. Swashbucklers should spring lightly; this one has gloss, but a certain stilted air.Stewart Granger differentiates his dual roles admirably, to the extent that I caught myself becoming sceptical as to the actual resemblance between the two supposed doubles! His final duel is as athletic as any in his screen career, although the plot demands dogged defence rather than flashing brilliance; indeed, the outcome is refreshingly unconventional. However, I didn't find Rudolf Rassendyll to be one of his more memorable characters.It was James Mason, sporting an incongruous Prussian bullet-head haircut, who was the real disappointment for me. No stranger to charismatic villainy in the likes of "The Man in Grey", "Fanny by Gaslight" or "The Wicked Lady", he is here oddly lacking in Rupert of Hentzau's essential perverse charm, in what should have been a scene-stealing part. The other male characters are little more than one-dimensional down to Duke Michael's villainous limp, although Louis Calhern makes an upright Colonel Zapt.The women fare better. Deborah Kerr is sweet, fiery and entirely convincing as Princess Flavia, next in line to the throne, and Jane Greer is more than equal to the pivotal role of Antoinette de Mauban, whose complex motives prove the key to the whole plot.Ultimately, I found this a decent film, but not as outstanding as it should have been, given its constituent parts. It isn't the best work of any of the actors involved. I am reminded of Zoltan Korda's re-make of his own "Four Feathers" as the widescreen "Storm of the Nile": the story (and indeed in that case the script) is the same, but the spark is missing.Given the parallels, I must admit that I'm now very curious as to how the 1937 "Prisoner of Zenda" -- which I've never seen -- stands up in comparison! This one is a plush literary adaptation, but lacks the rollicking rapier-edge of laughter and daring that characterise the great classics of its genre.