All the King's Horses

Hollywood star Carl Brisson is visiting his homeland of Langenstein. He is commanded to a private audience with the King, also played by Carl Brisson. The Queen, Mary Ellis, has been complaining that the King's beard scratches and Carl talks Carl into shaving it off. Waddayaknow, they're twins! The King decides to take a vacation in Vienna as the star, accompanied by Edward Everett Horton (surely not everyone's first choice). The star masquerades as the King, while his manager, Eugene Pallette balances the budget. The Queen, not being in on the gag, is pleased with her non-scratching consort.

It's an agreeable potpourri of operetta, Ruritanian romance and colatura singing by Miss Ellis, who had starred at the Metropolitan opera before she decided it was easier to be a straight actress. Mr. Brisson was also a good choice for a role that might have gone to Chevalier a year or two earlier. Although he is best remembered for being in a couple of late silent Hitchcock movies and being Rosalind Russell's father-in-law, he had begin as a song-and-dance man in Denmark, and his big number at the end, "Dancing the Viennese", got choreographer Leroy Prinz an Oscar nomination.

It's a pleasant and unremarkable piece of fluff that did no one's career any particular good or harm. Brisson and Ellis returned to the stage. Director Frank Tuttle continued working for another quarter of a century, including helming Alan Ladd's breakout film. I enjoyed it.