Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll (Stewart Granger) vacations in a small country where his distant relative, and physical double, is about to be crowned king. When the king-to-be is drugged by his half-brother Michael (Robert Douglas) and Rupert of Hentzau (James Mason), loyal officers Colonel Zapt (Louis Calhern) and Lieutenant Fritz von Tarlenhein (Robert Coote) persuade Rassendyll to impersonate his relative so that the coronation can take place. But matters are complicated when Rassendyll feels himself attracted to Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr).
Would I react to this movie differently if I hadn’t seen the 1937 version first? It can only be a theoretical question as I did see that one first and this version looks truly sad in comparison. Even worse in that it is a shot-for-shot remake. The original was shown on set to the crew and then recreated. Even the same music is used. The only change is the switch to color. It is an attractive, lush color, but it gives the film a claustrophobic feeling, making it obvious that the castle is only a set.
The original talkie adaptation in 1937 (there are three silent versions) is one of the great Swashbucklers and a wonderful film without the genre qualifier. It was also one of the films that define the genre. My critique of it is here, and most of my comments (good and bad) on the plot apply to the 1952 version as well.
So, this version was unnecessary (not uncommon for remakes), but as the original was so good, why is this one such a failure? Part of that is due to director Richard “one-shot” Thorpe, who only shut down his cameras when an actor flubbed a line. Hardly a man who was going to get the best performances on film. But it was casting that doomed this project. Madeleine Carroll makes more of a fairy tale princess than Deborah Kerr, but generally the females in both versions are acceptable. It is in the males that it loses joy and complexity. Louis Calhern, replacing C. Aubrey Smith as Col. Zapt, is just a weaker version of the same thing, but as his sidekick, Robert Coote appears effeminate and lost. Quite a switch from the suave David Niven. Stewart Granger takes over the duo leads, appearing neither as a believable “real-life” character, nor as the stylized fantasy hero that Ronald Colman was. I can’t penalize him for lacking Colman’s melodic voice, as Granger sounds pleasant enough. But he has no understanding of his role. He had been superb as an overly-dramatic, sword-wielding rogue in Scaramouche (released earlier in 1952) but that was a very different type of part. Rudolf Rassendyll is more of a heroic everyman, and Granger fails to find the humanity of the man, instead, stiffly reciting the lines as a generic, empty cutout. Perhaps if Thorpe had given Granger a chance to find the character with multiple takes, but that wasn’t Thorpe’s way.
It is with the villains that things really go wrong. In the 1937 version, Raymond Massey makes Michael a multilayered character, a man who is dangerous and controlled by his hatred, yet noble and sympathetic. It’s a tricky thing to achieve considering how few lines Michael has, but it shows what a fine actor can do. Robert Douglas is not so successful, putting nothing into the character that isn’t in the lines. So, Michael ends up as a simple opponent, with no motivation, and nothing to invoke understanding. But the greatest miscasting was for Rupert of Hentzau, the witty, joyful scoundrel. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. matched the role perfectly, but James Mason, a good actor in the proper role, lacks every characteristic necessary. Hentzau is a man of charisma and passion, but Mason makes him deliberate and drab. That might have worked if his dialog had been changed, but he’s uttering the same semi-comical, unrestrained lines as Fairbanks did, as a middle-manager might. Mason would have made an excellent Michael, but as Hentzau, he is tired.
I cannot think of another picture that so clearly points out that film is a collaborative art. It is not the director who makes it all work, but the talents of everyone involved. When one part fails, it all does, and here, the acting fails.