Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

08 November 2022

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)


What a delightful swashbuckling adventure! Ronald Colman is good in this, and it's a well plotted, beautifully designed, pleasurable romp no matter how you swing your sword – especially for 1937 – but the real takeaway here was Douglas Fairbanks Jr. He's incredible! Insouciant, wild, unpredictable: he's a movie star through and through. He makes this part into a character any star would want to play. It's really masterful. I have never paid too much attention to the younger Fairbanks (the Academy never did either), but I will now. Mary Astor is also fabulous in this.

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