Prisoner of Zenda, The (1952) (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Oct 30, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Richard ThorpeRelease Date(s)
1952 (July 29, 2025)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
Made during an era when MGM was trying to cut production costs by recycling everything from sets and costumes to remaking former glories, this oft-remade The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) was a nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line re-do of David O. Selznick’s independently-made (and released through United Artists) 1937 film starring Ronald Colman. (The pre-MGM Metro Pictures had made a 1922 silent film version starring Lewis Stone.)
I haven’t seen the 1937 film since the early days of VHS, but this version is suitably lavish yet not overproduced—as MGM’s CinemaScope films soon would be—and it has an excellent cast, reteaming the stars of King Solomon’s Mines, along with notably superb special effects.
In 1897 in the (fictitious) country of Ruritania, Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll (Stewart Granger) is the spitting image of soon-to-be-crowned distant relative King Rudolf V (also Granger), a hedonistic drunk. They meet just before the coronation, along with latter’s keepers, Colonel Zapt (Louis Calhern) and Capt. Fritz von Tarlenheim (Robert Coote). But the nearly-crowned king is drugged, and Zapt and von Tarlenheim implore Rudolf to temporarily impersonate Rudolf for the coronation, lest his scheming half-brother, Michael, Duke of Strelsau (Robert Douglas), assume royal authority as Regent, a plan implemented with the assistance of Rupert of Hentzau (James Mason), who covets the crown for himself.
Rupert and Michael quickly catch on that Rudolf is an English imposter, but cannot expose the ruse without exposing their own plotting and eventual kidnapping of the would-be his majesty. Meanwhile, the English Rudolf has fallen in love for real with Rudolf’s intended bride, Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr).
This remake may be a Technicolor carbon copy (for the most part) of a superior 1937 original, but on its own terms the picture is a delight for all ages. The special visual effects are flawlessly done, beginning with rather extraordinary pans across the mountainous landscapes of Ruritania. These look like elaborate glass shots rather than traveling mattes, but I’m not sure just how they were done. Likewise, split-screens of the two Rudolfs are quite amazing, with one Stewart Granger shaking the hand of the other, or walking behind a chair where the other is seated. The Alain Delon swashbuckler The Black Tulip (1964) achieves similarly dazzling effects, and in Super Technirama 70, no less, but the results here, more than a dozen years earlier, are no less perfect.
Considering the film only cost $1.7 million—at a time when MGM’s musicals usually cost a million more than that—The Prisoner of Zenda is handsomely mounted. It didn’t even cost that much more than the $1.25 million 1937 film despite rising production costs, and that one was in black-and-white. Like the earlier film, the 1952 looks lavish at times—the coronation, the subsequent ball—but more of it is intimate and character-driven, and the story is virtually foolproof, putting it ahead of most adventure yarns of this type.
Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel has been adapted into innumerable film versions, though not in live-action since the flop 1979 Peter Sellers comedy. However, variations and loose remakes abound, including an entire superfluous segment of Blake Edwards’s The Great Race (1965); the best of these is, the charming Ivan Reiman-Gary Ross comedy Dave (1993), a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda in all but name.
Stewart Granger might not be quite as all-around excellent as Ronald Colman was, but he’s dashing and likeable, and as with the Delon film, he admirably creates two distinctive characters. Everyone else in the cast is at least as good as their 1937 counterparts, particularly the sadly mostly forgotten Louis Calhern, so subtle a performer that he’s easily underappreciated. In one scene the almost-king rudely slaps the loyal Colonel in the face, and Calhern’s expression of surprise and hurt is palpable.
But the big improvement over the 1937 film is James Mason. Though saddled with garish, almost cartoony costumes that Mason considered “ghastly” in his autobiography—in several scenes he wears what looks like the chauffeur uniform worn by Parker on Thunderbirds—he plays his villainous role with relish; it’s like a warm-up to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest with a dash of Basil Rathbone.
Warner Archive’s Blu-ray of The Prisoner of Zenda is another splendiferous transfer. Filmed in three-strip Technicolor for 1.37:1 standard projection, the bright, primary colors are perfectly aligned. Those that admired Warner’s fine work on King Solomon’s Mines will not be disappointed. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono) is likewise excellent, and supported by optional English subtitles.
When released to DVD in 2007 (as part of its “Literary Classics” collection), it was a flipper disc that included the 1937 version, but for the Blu-ray the main extra is the even earlier 1922 silent film starring Lewis Stone (who has a small role as a cardinal in the 1952 remake, filmed not long before his death). To my eyes this silent version (accompanied by a lush original score) appears up-rezzed from standard definition, but the video quality is very good if that’s the case. Sources tell me that the 1937 version still needs a lot of work, so maybe that’s why it’s not included here.
Other extras consist of two audio-only radio adaptations: a Lux Radio Theater broadcast starring Colman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (who played Mason’s part in the 1937 film), and a Screen Director’s Playhouse with Colman and John Cromwell, director of the ’37 version. A trailer rounds out the supplements.
I anticipated suffering through this Prisoner of Zenda much as I had Knights of the Round Table a few weeks earlier, but was pleasantly surprised by how well done this version is. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV