'The Prisoner of Zenda' Was Rousing Swashbuckler

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"Fate doesn't always make the right men kings."

Fritz (David Niven)

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Several versions of "The Prisoner of Zenda" have been made over the years, and most have been pretty faithful to Anthony Hope's adventure novel.

But the first version I ever saw was one that was made in 1979. It starred Peter Sellers — and if you know anything at all about Peter Sellers, you know that just about everything he ever did was funny. As a result, Hope's novel got a rather irreverent treatment.

If you were familiar with the story, it was funny in the parody style of Mel Brooks. But I wasn't familiar with the original story so I assumed that all the versions of "The Prisoner of Zenda" that had been made earlier were comedies, too.

Regretfully, that led me to ignore the earlier versions for a long time.

That was a big mistake. I have often wished that I had seen the version that premiered on this day in 1937 first. If I had, I would have appreciated the humor in the Sellers version in a way that I didn't back when I saw it. I haven't seen all the movie adaptations of Hope's novel, but that is the best that I have seen.

The best word for it is swashbuckler — quite a rousing one.

And I would have known — as I didn't for a long time — that it was really an adventure story and not the parody that the Sellers version was.

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But my mother was a huge fan of Peter Sellers. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I am also a great admirer of Peter Sellers — I don't know how anyone could watch "Dr. Strangelove" or "Being There" and not be a Sellers admirer.

But he simply wouldn't have been the right person to play the lead in a movie that was faithful to the story as it was originally told.

Ronald Colman, on the other hand, was a pretty good choice.

Now, as a Sellers fan, I can understand why he was an obvious choice to play the role. It involved a doppelgänger — the main character was the identical distant cousin of the crown prince of a small country that was unnamed in the movie. Colman played both roles (as he did in "Dr. Strangelove," Sellers played three parts, but you'll have to watch the movie to find out about that third character).

Anyway, Colman's character was drafted to fill in for his cousin at the coronation because his cousin drank some wine that had been drugged by his half–brother (Raymond Massey) who was poised to seize power if his half–sibling did not show up for his coronation. The prince could not be roused, and his cousin agreed to fill in to keep the throne from falling into the wrong hands.

The rest of the movie was entertaining with adventure punctuated by a romance involving Madeleine Carroll as the prince's apparent arranged fiancee, who despite her status had always disliked him but now, having become acquainted with the pretender (but not knowing it was a different person), found the new Rudolf to be very appealing.

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It made for a terrific combination of adventure and romance that was rewarded handsomely at the box office, which was hardly surprising. Its cast included the likes of David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Astor.

And it received two Oscar nominations — for Original Music Score and Art Direction.

You know, in hindsight, I'm inclined to wonder if maybe Mom, who was a child when this version of "The Prisoner of Zenda" was in theaters, was drawn to see the Peter Sellers version more because she had seen the Ronald Colman movie and had fond memories of the swashbuckling classic than because of her fondness for Sellers.

Of course, I wouldn't rule out either possibility.

The Birth of the Feature-Length Animated Film

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"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Walt Disney

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By the time I was born, Walt Disney had an established reputation as the first — and last — word in animation.

My memory is that Disney and family entertainment were synonymous terms — and it was implied that animation was a big part of that although I have vivid memories of seeing Disney productions that had no animation whatsoever.

Hand–drawn film animation is a pretty crowded field (although perhaps the field is dominated by computer graphics artists today) — but, like anything else, it had to start somewhere.

And, 75 years ago today, it did.

Animated films had been around for awhile, but they had been in the short–feature form. My parents saw them in theaters when they were children; my generation knew them as Saturday morning cartoons. But, until this day in 1937, no one had made a feature–length movie in that format. And no one had produced an animated feature film in full color.

It's likely that animation would have progressed eventually, anyway, although I think it is equally likely that it would not have come as far as quickly as it did if not for Walt Disney.

And the root of that, it seems to me, has to be "Snow White," which premiered on this day in 1937.

It's hard to imagine the mindset, but the primary objection to the project was the belief that no one would be willing to sit through a 90–minute cartoon. Critics called the project "Disney's Folly" — yet, five years ago, the American Film Institute recognized it as one of the Top 100 movies of all time.

But Disney was a master showman who understood his audience better than almost any of his contemporaries. He knew that, for feature–length animation to be commercially successful, he needed to appeal to adults as well as children.

"Snow White" combined more realistic human features in the prince and Snow White, who faced the most dramatic circumstances, with the cartoonish dwarfs, who provided most of the comic relief.

One can argue that, with its tale of Prince Charming awakening a slumbering (and beautiful) Snow White with a kiss, the story and characters perpetuated stereotypes under which women have struggled for the last 7½ decades.

But, recently, Judith Welikala and Emily Dugan wrote in The Independent of how Disney's female characters have — to borrow an old advertising expression — come a long way, baby.

(I suppose it could be argued that they might not have come as far as they have in Disney movies if Disney had not died in 1966.)

The heroines of Disney's early movies, wrote Welikala and Dugan, had to have "a handsome prince, a tiny waist, a pearly white smile and an urgent need to be rescued."

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Queen: Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?

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In three–quarters of a century, they have evolved to be more independent, more self–reliant. More liberated.

Princess Merida of this year's "Brave," they observed, is "the first Disney princess who does not have a love interest."

That may be, as a columnist and Disney historian told Welikala and Dugan, more a reflection of the times. Women were more dependent on men in the 1930s. They entered the work force during World War II and many were reluctant to leave it after the war ended.

More and more women found themselves having to make the choice between their professional and personal lives. Although women were frequently told they could "have it all," most have found it a tricky — and elusive — accomplishment.

In many ways, "Snow White" is a glimpse into the values that prevailed in the 1930s — much as TV shows from the 1950s are said to epitomize that time in our social history — a time when children were told fairy tales they continued to believe into adulthood.

Kind of a time capsule — in full color.

Lost Horizon

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In the annals of movie history, there have been few film directors whose works have enjoyed the enduring popularity of Frank Capra's.

Maybe that is because you always know what you're going to get when you sit down to watch a Frank Capra movie. The mere mention of his name evokes a mental image of relentless optimism — of Jimmy Stewart waging a quixotic battle from the floor of the Senate or discovering the influence of a single life on everything it touches and, in the process, is persuaded not to throw away his own.

Audiences in the 1930s and 1940s consistently made Capra's movies the top money makers — even when Capra and his movie audiences weren't exactly on the same page.

Yes, you always knew what you were going to get with Capra. Or did you?

Columbia Pictures probably thought it knew what to expect 75 years ago when Capra was making "Lost Horizon," the film that was released on this day in 1937. He'd been money in the bank for Columbia in the past.

But "Lost Horizon" was a financial disappointment. It cost nearly 40% more than its original budget figure of $2 million (quite a lavish sum in 1930s dollars), and it was nearly five years before the backers broke even.

The more lasting damage was done to Capra's relationships with Columbia and screenwriter Robert Riskin, with whom Capra had built his reputation. In the preceding five years, Capra had been nominated for Best Director three times — and won it twice.

He wasn't nominated for his directorial work on "Lost Horizon," although he should have been. It was a bit of a departure for him.

Of course, Capra was mostly known for his work in comedies — and, to an extent, dramas — but "Lost Horizon" was really more of a fantasy.

And, while it would be fair to characterize many of Capra's movies as, at least, dabbling in fantasy, it was never as prominent as it was in Capra's film version of James Hilton's vision of paradise, the fictional Shangri–La, where there is no crime or hate, where wisdom is prized, self–improvement is encouraged and the age of 100 is roughly middle age.

But, of course, such a utopia cannot last, at least not for the outsiders who stumble into it. Consequently, one of Capra's trademark happy endings wasn't possible (as if the title didn't make that quite clear).

It was a challenging and ambitious project for Capra, and he deserved more credit and recognition for it than he received — but the truth remains that it was the only film he ever made that was nominated for Best Picture (or, in its earlier incarnation, Outstanding Production) for which he was not also nominated for Best Director.

That doesn't mean he didn't make a lot of critical decisions, especially in post–production. He cut back on the film's length, jokingly claiming that he merely lopped off the beginning and started the movie where the real action begins.

The truth is, he appears to have done a lot of meticulous editing from the heart of the film. He didn't just lop off the first 15 minutes.

I've seen both the edited and restored original versions, and I think Capra may have done his most skillful work on "Lost Horizon," whichever version was seen. The edited version seemed seamless to me.

It was an atypical entry in Capra's impressive body of work.