'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 Battle Between Good and Evil on Navarone

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Mallory (Gregory Peck): Are you sure it will work?

Corp. Miller (David Niven): There's no guarantee, but the theory's perfectly feasible.

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No one would ever conclude that I am a fan of war movies. I grew up that way. My parents were decidedly antiwar when I was growing up, and I grew up believing as they did.

As an adult, I have amended my position, acknowledging that sometimes it is necessary to fight, but that doesn't mean that my attitude about war movies has changed much. I've never really been much for splashy special effects and explosions. I'm a writer. I like dialogue. Lots of it.

I do like some war movies, just as I do like some westerns and some love stories. Just not all of them. Not even most of them.

My overriding preference when it comes to movies of any genre is that the movie tell a good story. And that is what "The Guns of Navarone," which premiered on America's movie screens on this day in 1961, did.

If it had been one of those war movies where two sides just begin shooting randomly at each other for no apparent reason other than the fact that they represent two opposing sides in an armed conflict, it wouldn't have interested me. I'll grant you, that is how most wars seem to be fought. Still, I want a story, something that gives the movie context.

"The Guns of Navarone" was a fictional story about World War II, and it was a darn good story.

It was set with a real event as the backdrop — the Dodecanese Campaign, in which the Allied forces sought to capture the Italian–held Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea in 1943, a mission that failed — on a fictional island called Navarone. Specifically, it was based on events surrounding the Battle of Leros, the central event of that campaign. The Italians had installed two powerful guns on the island that controlled the seas, but they were captured by the Germans in the battle.

Using that as the inspiration, Scottish writer Alistair MacLean penned the novel "The Guns of Navarone," in which a group of commandos sets out to destroy the island fortress and liberate more than 1,000 British soldiers.

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Well, that's how it was in real life. In the novel (and the movie it inspired), there were 2,000 British soldiers. The British Navy planned to send in ships to rescue them, but first, those guns had to be neutralized. That's where the commandos came in.

Don't get me wrong. "The Guns of Navarone" had plenty of shooting and explosions — in fact, it won an Oscar for its special effects — but it also had a lot of dialogue that really told the story. (Carl Foreman was nominated for an Oscar for his adapted screenplay, but he lost to "Judgment at Nuremberg.")

Then, along the way, the movie's stars — Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn — kept propelling the commandos forward. Each brought a special qualification to the enterprise. Peck played a spy from New Zealand, talented at what he did but inexperienced as a leader; Niven was an explosives expert, and Quinn was a Greek patriot.

There were breathtakingly dramatic moments as the commando unit made its way to the objective. If you are part of the millennial generation and you've never seen "The Guns of Navarone" before, you may well see similarities between it and "The Lord of the Rings" when you do. The characters and circumstances are different, but the similarities are undeniable. Peck and Niven, in their quest for the guns, are not unlike Frodo and Sam in their journey to Mordor.

And both stories were about the clash between good and evil.

Streaking the Oscars

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"Oh, yes, they call him the Streak
Look at that, look at that
He likes to show off his physique
Look at that, look at that
If there's an audience to be found
He'll be streakin' around
Invitin' public critique"

Ray Stevens ("The Streak" 1974)

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The '70s were loaded with ridiculous fads — pet rocks, mood rings, leisure suits, lava lamps. The list goes on and on.

Every generation, every decade has its fads, but the '70s seemed to specialize in fads to an extent that no other decade has. I always thought one of the strangest fads of that decade was streaking — the practice of shedding one's clothes (and inhibitions) and sprinting through some sort of public place.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I did streak once — as I recall, I was 13, and I did it on a dare.)

For whatever reason, streaking has lived on long after other fads from the decade faded. It isn't done as often as it once was. Sometimes the witnesses to a streak are few — in an out of the way park, for example — and other times there can be many witnesses — at a sporting event or a commencement ceremony — but it continues to be done.

Most of the time — in the '70s and today — streakers seem to be male. Heck, sometimes all you need is a frat house and a keg of beer and, before you know it, someone will take off his clothes and run down the street or something.

Of course, if he's inebriated, it might not be much of a run.

Occasionally, though, a woman does streak — and make headlines.

In the mid–1990s, for instance, a 23–year–old woman named Melissa Johnson streaked during a match at Wimbledon.

A few years later, a woman named Yvonne Robb was arrested for running on to the course and kissing Tiger Woods during the British Open. Robb wasn't naked, merely wearing a bikini, but the next year, another woman streaked fully nude onto the course that was hosting the British Open.

My memory of late 1973, at the dawn of the fad, is that there were occasions when groups of female students (probably sorority members) at one college or another would have an organized streak — at homecoming or whatever.

And it seems to me that I once heard of a kind of group streak that was done on bicycles. That was more of a coed thing — in the sense that there were both male and female streak cyclists.

Other than that, though, streakers have almost always been males.

There are no particular rules for streaking. Originally, as I recall, all streakers were naked — or wearing something that didn't cover one's "private parts," like shoes or a hat — but streaking has changed. These days, when you hear of someone streaking at some kind of event, it may not have been a classic streak.

That person is just as likely to have been wearing something private (like underwear) or otherwise revealing as to have been naked. Of course, that may be the difference between being charged with indecent exposure — and not being charged with indecent exposure.

Streaking isn't a competitive thing with some kind of scoring system. It's more of a free expression kind of thing. Whatever you can do to make your streak memorable — other than the fact that you happen to be running naked through some kind of public place — is encouraged.

Probably the most noteworthy streak took place 40 years ago tonight during the Academy Awards presentation. Robert Opel, a 34–year–old photographer and art gallery owner, made his way backstage posing as a journalist and ran naked past David Niven flashing a peace sign.

Niven, who was in the process of introducing Elizabeth Taylor (who was going to announce the Best Picture winner), was praised for his apparent calm during the disruption and his quip, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

Some years later, it turned out that Niven's quip may not have been as spontaneous as it appeared. Opel's streak may have been staged by producer Jack Haley Jr., and Niven's line may have been composed in advance.

I don't believe Opel or Niven ever confirmed that it was a setup, and neither can be asked about it now. Both were dead within a decade of Opel's streak. Niven fell ill and died in his 70s, and the 39–year–old Opel was murdered during a robbery at his studio in 1979.

Death By Laughter

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I have mentioned before that my parents were devoted fans of the murder mystery.

They were familiar with all of the great literary and film detectives, and they passed along a fondness for the genre to me — along with a collection of paperback novels by Agatha Christie, which are still in the book collection on my shelves today.

In fact, they were so familiar with the genre that they got every joke, every reference that Neil Simon wrote into his entertaining cinematic spoof of murder mysteries, "Murder By Death," which premiered 35 years ago tomorrow.

That was a definite plus for me. I remember seeing the movie with them and then having them explain the jokes I didn't get after the movie was over.

I wound up returning to the theater to see the movie again (a couple of times) after they told me the inside jokes I had missed — and the movie actually inspired me to read some books I hadn't read before.

As a result, when I watch that movie now, I am filled with admiration for Simon's wit.

There really isn't much more to say about the plot of the movie. I mean, if you're familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the famous sleuths who were parodied, you will see that many of the devices Simon used were written primarily to set up the gags. But many of those set–ups were, themselves, inspired by the detectives' actual tendencies.

I would never suggest that it didn't take a lot of knowledge to write a clever script. It certainly did. Simon's a clever writer whose works have frequently been successes on Broadway — and, in 1976, there may have been no screenwriter who was as hot as Simon.

Nevertheless, it was a simple story. The world's greatest living detectives were invited to spend the weekend at the country home of a mysterious benefactor, where they would be treated to "dinner and a murder." The benefactor was played by Truman Capote, and he offered $1 million to any detective who could solve the crime.

His objective was to stump them all and claim the title of world's greatest detective for himself.

The rest of the film was a delightful collection of gags based on the eccentric behavior of the detectives and the writing habits of the authors who created them.

All that certainly had appeal for my parents — but I think what clinched the deal for them was the cast. They always had a particular fondness for British actors (I think that may have been due, in part, to the fact that they spent some time in Scotland after they were married), and "Murder By Death" was loaded with their favorites — Peter Sellers, David Niven, Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Elsa Lanchester.

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They were great, as always.

But I think almost any actor would have been great with the lines Neil Simon gave them.

For some reason, I particularly liked the lines that were given to Peter Falk (who played a combination of Sam Spade and Richard Diamond in his unique Columbo style).

• When asked if the blind butler (Guinness) was dead (the audience could see a knife protruding from his back), Falk replied, "With a thing like that in his back, in the long run, he's better off."


• On another occasion, Falk made this observation about a locked door: "Locked ... from the inside. That can only mean one thing. And I don't know what it is."


• Another time, upon rejoining his colleagues after a trip to the restroom, Diamond was told that there was a bullet hole in the back of his jacket.
  
  "You should see the other guy," he replied.


• Then there was the time when he introduced his female companion as "my secretary and mistress."

Well, they all had great lines.

Oh, and who was crowned the world's greatest detective?

Well, no one, really. There was some question, you see, as to whether anyone had been killed or not.

"Was there a murder or wasn't there?" demanded Willie Wang, adopted son of Sidney Wang (a parody of Charlie Chan, played delightfully by Sellers) as they drove away from the country estate.

"Yes," Sidney replied. "Killed good weekend."

Perhaps — but the time in the theater was far from wasted. I didn't have to be a detective to deduce that.