But Rassendyll is a gentleman and, not noticing that the man being coronated is a fraud, Flavia is taken to this supposed change in heart. Meanwhile, Rassendyll meets Rudolf’s fiancée and cousin Princess Flavia (Carroll), who had always resented Rudolf’s boorish ways. Sends his henchman Rupert of Hentzau (Fairbanks, Jr.) to investigate. Who drugged Rudolf’s wine and did not expect his half-brother to show up to the coronation While Rassendyll is standing in at the coronation, Rudolf’s half-brother Duke Michael (Massey) Luckily, look-alike Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll (Colman), whom Rudolf invited to dinner, agrees to impersonate the soon-to-be monarch at the suggestion of Colonel Zapt (Smith) and Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim (Niven, whose role in the film gave him a much-needed career boost).
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In his inebriated state, Rudolf is in no shape to attend the coronation the next morning. Somewhere in the fictional, Germanic, and Catholic nation of Ruritania, Rudolf V (Colman) has got himself hammered the night before his coronation.
![the prisoner of zenda 1937 the prisoner of zenda 1937](https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/5881066n/556d60c1/the-prisoner-of-zenda-1937-shutterstock-editorial-5881066n.jpg)
Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and a young David Niven form an enjoyable ensemble cast in an adventure film that, though a bit slow to start, mixes romance, wit, and propulsive swashbuckling action. But it is the 1937 version by director John Cromwell that has been championed as the greatest adaptation.
#THE PRISONER OF ZENDA 1937 TV#
A 1952 film, a 1961 TV adaptation with Christopher Plummer and a 1961 Bengali film adaptation starring Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee brought the source material the colorized treatment.
![the prisoner of zenda 1937 the prisoner of zenda 1937](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/e1/95/003895e1.jpeg)
Hackett, the other Ramon Novarro), and a 1925 operetta. Audiences would be saturated with the story through Broadway and West End productions, multiple silent film adaptations (one starring James K. Hope’s novel was and still is widely read and little did he know that adaptation after adaptation would follow. In 1894, British author Anthony Hope wrote the adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda.