Le prisonnier de Zenda

Prisoner of Zenda should have much to be proud of: nice music by Henry Mancini, good dual performance by Peter Sellers and gorgeous-looking cinematography and impressive sets and locations.

Unfortunately, all this adds to nothing. The film is as if it were written seriously with the screenwriters assuming that it could be turned into a comedy simply by having Gregory Sierra overact and bulge his eyeballs every now and then and the rest of the cast move about in a humorous way. But it doesn't work that way, even Sellers cannot inject enough comedy into this film(in fact, much unlike Sierra, he is slightly underplaying his roles, which is good).

In the end, one gets the impression that the team had a large amount of money and a good cast, but didn't know what to do with them.

This is a very lavish looking, picturesque romp that should have been a sure fire hit. "Porridge" scriptwriters Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais were the men responsible for turning the classic Anthony Hope into a comedy, which shouldn't have been too difficult bearing in mind the ridiculous scenario linked to the main story. However, this scenario is all they went for, and any characterisation or satirical touches are abandoned and a lot of cartoonish setups such as Gregory Sierra's role and also other segments such as the explosive bowls game and the early scene in the restaurant replace any serious comedy. Therefore, in his dwindling health and sorrowful state, Sellers looks a bit out of place amongst the diving into the water routines and the jumping of a tall castle stints. It is very similar to his Fu Manchu experience two years later (when he also played two roles) in that he's still putting the work in but to little effect. The film is a reminder of his earlier years and really backfires as a poor man's Pink Panther. However, he still proves that he can act (which is a lot more than most actors these days) despite the poor material and backed by a host of regular artists such as Catherine Schell, Elke Sommer (both stars of Pink Pantherfs), Graham Stark, John Laurie, Jeremy Kemp (who had starred in Sellers' The Blockhouse in 1972) - it should have been better considering the quality of Sellers' other films at the time, but it does fall very flat.

This movie is only saved by the brilliant performance by Peter Sellers, the rest of the film are bad and repetitive jokes. Its a good film to see the genius of Sellers, but you'll have to suffer the movie.

This is pretty fun, there is a lot of things going on that become garbled especially toward the latter from the plot like badguys switching to be good guys suddenly? This is cancelled by the nonstop narrative that just becomes action of people battling and all that stuff and it is here there is a vortex of hypnotism as you just follow this narrative without thought but just action. As I check this I keep thinking this must be a mid-60s movie and am surprised to check the release here. If you like candlelit castle locales at night well this movie is for you.

This film is not great, but it is certainly interesting especially for avid Sellers' fans.