Mixed Double

By R.S.

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA Directed by Richard Quine Screenplay by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais

At the start, one imagines that this movie is a parody remake of a beloved old movie (based in turn on the even more antique romantic novel by Anthony Hope). Doubtless that is what everyone originally intended. But either the story is so strong and appealing that it resists parody, or else the moviemakers did not, in the end, have the heart to tear its delicious old passions to. tatters--who can say? Anyway, the picture that has emerged is a mild diversion, agreeable but not very funny and not very exciting. Chucklesome is probably the word for it.

The story is as ever. The crown prince of a mythical country is under threat of assassination on the eve of his coronation because his wicked half brother wants the throne for himself. An Englishman who is a perfect double for the man who would be king is recruited to stand in for him, drawing the evildoer's fire until the sibling and his cohorts can be undone. In a tale of this sort, there is an irreducible minimum of suspense and action, which really cannot be satirized, lest all tension be drained from the plot. There is also a certain essential nobility of character that cannot be bleached out of the double's personality, lest all belief in these improbable doings be lost. The result is that Peter Sellers, in the key double role, must play his part as the substitute king very straight. In this version he is not a gentleman, but a London hansom cab driver. Sellers makes something quite affecting of this honest workman, intruding his democratic values and lower-class common sense on Middle European court politics at the turn of the century. Sellers must save his best comic efforts for the prince's role. He makes him into a perfect twit, a gambling, womanizing, cowardly wastrel, complete with an absolutely splendid lisp that is as loonily effective as Inspector Clouseau's fractured French.

Such outright farce as the film contains is confined to a sort of decorative frieze of character actors surrounding the main action. The most effective isGregory Sierra as a husband continually cuckolded and perpetually seeking revenge on the prince. Sierra is usually assaulting the wrong man entirely, ending up with his schemes backfiring on him--a sort of Wile E. Coyote in human form. Most of this comedy turns out to be perfunctory, as is Director Quine's handling of the straight action scenes. There is an unnerving feeling that most of the performers would like to do more than they are called on to do, that there is a potential here for dizziness that was never quite appreciated. Certainly more gags, both visual and verbal, are called for than the writers supplied.

The film does gently remind us of past pleasures, now missed, and it is rather handsomely produced. Maybe, since its creators lack a true--that is to say Mel Brooksian--gift for parody, they would have done better to play the whole thing straight and let us have our nostalgia unalloyed.

-- R.S.

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