All the King's Horses

The plot for "All the King's Horses" is one that sounds enjoyable and should have been. Sadly, however, even with so much promise, the film failed to deliver.

King Rudolf XIV of Langenstein is having problems with Queen Elaine. He's all work and no play...and finally, in disgust, she has left him. When the King learns that there is an actor who is his spitting image (an overused and silly plot device...though it worked well in films such as "The Prisoner of Zenda"), he sends for Carlo. The pair meet and decide to switch lives for a bit. The new King makes a lot of reforms which tick off the elite but soon the Queen has returned and loves the new husband. In the meantime, the real King hangs out in Vienna.

There are two huge problems. The biggest are the incredible number of songs in this movie. This plot does NOT lend itself to singing and with so many songs, there isn't enough room for the story. Second, why did they pick the Danish actor Carl Brisson for the role? I occasionally had a hard time understanding his accent...closed captions would have helped. Overall, a decent idea for a story that simply had too many distractions and not enough time to develop the plot.

The music in this film is a cut above what you might expect. What makes it memorable is due to the song "A Little White Gardenia" which was sung a number of times by Carl Brisson and Mary Ellis. He was an acknowledged singer, but whether she did her own singing, I can not say, except it was more than adequate

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.

If you can imagine a "Prisoner of Zenda" with musical numbers, then you're halfway there with this rather mixed up hybrid. We even have another "Rudolph" (Carl Brisson) who has been neglecting his queen (Mary Ellis), so she absconds from their palace telling him she shall only return once he mended his ways. Now the king does actually quite like his wife, and so when his beardless doppelgänger "Rocco" arrives in the kingdom, he is hired to take his place on the throne whilst the real monarch goes off to woo back his lady. Snag? Well there are two. Firstly, they end up with the ebullient "Conley" (Eugene Pallette) doing much of the governing - and reasonably well too. Secondly, the queen returns to her home and starts to feel a reignited affection for her husband - but not the right one! With the real king miles away and the false one increasingly embroiled in this romantic confusion, what's going to happen next? Might treason be about to be committed? The story itself it completely forgettable fluff, but there are a few musical numbers from Messrs. Horan and Herendeen that do their job adequately and an entertainingly staged big set-piece dance number towards the end that rather sums up the stylish romantic escapism of the thing. Ellis plays well; Brisson has something of the Romanov to him which helps a little and both Pallette and Edward Everett Horton's "Count Peppi" amiably enliven this soapy drama. You'll never remember it, but it's a watchable enough, cheerful, song and dance costume caper.