If I Were King

"If I Were King" has a lot going for it. Based upon a 1901 play by Justin Huntly McCarthy that was subsequently transformed into a successful operetta by Rudolph Friml, the screenplay for this version was written by Preston Sturges. That means it includes a significant amount of Sturges' unique brand of sophisticated and sly wit. This was early in Sturges' career, before he emerged as a successful combination writer and director. Sturges' later films included such classics as "The Great McGinty", "Sullivan's Travels", "The Lady Eve", "The Palm Beach Story", "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" and "Unfaithfully Yours".

"If I Were King" also included superior performances by two great actors at the top of their game. Ronald Coleman was the perfect choice to play the swashbuckling poet-rogue, Francois Villon. For the benefit of those not familiar with French literature, Francois Villon really was a 15th Century French poet, he really did graduate from the Sorbonne and he really was a petty criminal who seems to have been constantly in trouble with the law. Born in Paris in 1431, Villon is described as having "disappeared from view" in 1463. To this day nobody really knows for sure what became of him, although the presumption is that he came to no good end. However, there is absolutely no evidence that he ever did anything even remotely heroic. Ronald Coleman possessed more than enough swashbuckling charm to carry the role, as well as the mellifluous voice to make the poetry work as few other actors, even in his day, could have done.

Usually known for playing either villains or Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone, was given a rare opportunity to demonstrate his acting virtuosity by playing an aging King Louis IX; the clever, conniving and cynical French monarch who has become known to history as "Louis the Spider". At one point in the movie Preston Sturges has the King self-deprecatingly remark that, "The people of France already have one 'Saint Louis', another would only confuse them".

Colman was not only good looking, suave, sophisticated, and dashing, but he had a lyrical voice, an absolute necessity for a great actor. Recall the speech and voices of Peter O'Toole, James Mason, Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier: when they spoke, it was not mere prose but verse. So who better to play the poet, Francois Villon, than Ronald Colman, who possessed the voice of a poet.

Ronald Colman is my favorite actor of all time. I loved his performance in this film as well as his performances in "Random Harvest", "The Prisoner of Zenda", "The Lost Horizon", and "The Talk of the Town".

There were other great performances in this film besides that of Ronald Colman. Basil Rathbone's performance as King Louis XI is perhaps one of his finest, and deserving of an Academy Award as best supporting actor, while Frances Dee's performance as Villon's beloved is mesmerizing, the images to relive forever in one's dreams: the perfection of beauty and femininity. And Ellen Drew's portrayal of Huguette is touching without being maudlin.

Great film, great performances. Hollywood at its very best.

Francois Villon, born 1431 was all that If I Were King makes him out to be. Poet, satirist, duelist, and consorter with the rabble of low degree as Brian Hooker's lyric from The Vagabond King, he was all this. His satire brought him some big time trouble, a death sentence. But a last minute commutation by the monarch he satirized, brought him banishment in 1463. Villon went so far into obscurity that we do not know when he died after leaving Paris.

From these facts Justin Huntly McCarthy wrote a popular romantic play that premiered in 1901 and was later made into an operetta with score by Rudolf Friml and Brian Hooker. McCarthy took into account the politics of the time in medieval France. Louis XI was only King for two years, ascending the throne in 1461. The monarchy after leading France to an ultimate victory in the Hundred Years War against the English, was leader of a shattered land with many of the lesser lords quite a bit more powerful than the king. Chief among these in France at the time was the Duke of Burgundy. Whoever held that title ruled an area about a third of modern day France.

It's those Burgundians who have Paris surrounded and are dictating terms to Louis XI when the story opens. Villon and his sidekicks have broken into one of the King's warehouses and helped themselves to some food. Taking it back to the tavern owned by Robin Turgis, Villon makes a few choice comments about Louis XI. Unbeknownst to him, Louis himself is there on a mission to ferret out a traitor among his counselors. The traitor turns out to be the Constable of Paris. When a fight breaks out, Villon kills the constable.

This puts Louis in a dilemma as he sees it. Villon has killed a traitor, but he's insulted the person of the king. Since Villon brags about how much better a job he can do, Louis makes him Constable of Paris and gives him a noble title.

No man on the silver screen ever spoke the King's English better than Ronald Colman. I could listen to that man recite the Yellow Pages. He's a perfect Villon.

Basil Rathbone was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1938 for Louis XI. Louis XI was known as the spider king because the man was the craftiest of schemers. He usually had about 5 or 6 options given any situation, most of us are lucky if we have one alternative. Dealing from weakness as he was, he had to be a man of cunning, guile, and deception.

Interesting talking about the King's English when dealing with a pair of figures from medieval France. But the contrast between the romantic Villon and the crafty Louis is what drives the film. That and the partnership of necessity they form and the later grudging respect they develop for each other. Colman and Rathbone have the classical training needed to make If I Were King work.

The two main female characters acquit themselves well. Frances Dee as noblewoman Katherine DeVaucelles and Ellen Drew as the tragic Huguette are just fine. And among the supporting cast, I particularly like Sidney Toler as tavern owner Turgis. It's quite a contrast from playing Charlie Chan.

For me watching If I Were King is like watching The Vagabond King without the music since I know where the songs go. It's like watching a production of Pygmalion after seeing My Fair Lady. You keep waiting for the songs to start.

Particularly I listen for Colman to break into the Song of the Vagabonds as he rouses the citizens of Paris. It's a great moment in both the play and the musical.

You will thrill when you hear Colman rouse that rabble of low degree even if he doesn't sing.

If English Medieval history is unevenly shown in Hollywood films (see my comment on YOUNG BESS), French Medieval history is non-existant. The sole real centers of films on France from 1000 to 1500 are those dealing with Joan of Arc and those dealing with that contemporary pair of Louis XI (the "Spider King") and Francois Villon, the great vagabond poet. In short, the period of roughly 1429-1431 (with a brief look into the future, via George Bernard Shaw, into the 1450s), and 1471 - 1477). The rest of the fifteenth century is ignored. As for preceeding eras, BECKET, THE LION IN WINTER, and THE CRUSADES all deal with the tangle of French and English politics in the years 1160 - 1199, and the two films of HENRY V do deal with the invasion of France in 1415, and the battle of Agincourt (but no films about Crecy or Poitiers).

Louis XI was one of the most astute, crafty monarchs of France or any other nation in history. He is not a loveable figure (as his nickname of "Spider King" shows). But loveability was not a viable policy for any French monarch. England was a constant threat, even after the final defeat of the English in the Hundred Years War in the 1450s (long after Joan of Arc was burned). The monarchs would insist on keeping the Kingdom of France among their titles (after England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland) into the 18th Century. There were dynastic marriages between the Burgundian royal house (modern day Belgium and Holland and the Rhineland make up what was Burgundy) and the British. Louis had to constantly balance friendly relations with realism about British aims (and Burgundian aims for that matter). Things came to a head in 1470 when Phillip of Burgundy, a wise leader, died and his son Charles the Bold (more accurately "the Rash") became Prince of Burgundy. Because of certain French lands near Paris owned by the Burgundians, Charles was a subject of Louis. But Louis's government was poorer than Charles's and he kept toying with either breaking his liege position with Louis or seizing the French throne. This latter policy led to a series of wars, including a siege of Paris. Remarkably, due to superior leadership qualities, Louis beat Charles - or rather Charles beat himself. In 1477 Charles died in a battle against another target - the Swiss republics. Louis died in 1483, the first really great modern French monarch or leader.

He was suspicious, and ever ready to use torture. But given the general standards of his period (the same time as the Wars of the Roses, and of the likes of Cesare Borgia) his use of torture was actually consistant with his contemporaries. Louis popped up in other stories aside from IF I WERE KING - he was the king in THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (in the 1939 film played, more kindly, by Walter Hampden). In a silent version of IF I WERE KING, BELOVED ROGUE (with John Barrymore as Villon)Conrad Veidt played him as more crafty and dangerous - and superstitious. He would also show up as the monarch fighting Charles the Rash in the film of QUENTIN DURWARD (after the novel of Sir Walter Scott) that starred Robert Taylor. In the present film he is played by Basil Rathbone, for once not tied down to sleuthing or to using a sword against Tyrone Power or Errol Flynn. He is able to demonstrate the frustration of a wise monarch, hampered by traitors and by a lack of popular support. The screenplay by Preston Sturges gives him some good lines of humor as well (he was a capable comic actor - see his pompous dried-out composer in RHTHYM ON THE RIVER, or even his greedy relative in WE'RE NO ANGELS). The make-up on his face makes his eyes look constantly rhumey and nearly unrecognizeable.

Villon is a great poet, of whom we know much but not enough. We don't know when he was born or when he died. We know he was a criminal (a thief and a murderer) but was able to avoid the scaffold - at least in known recorded history. In this film and BELOVED ROGUE he is forced to come to the aid of France, taking over the key job of High Constable (the previous High Constable, whom he killed, was a traitor to Louis). As this is a fiction, we are led to believe Villon manages within a week to instill spririt into the people of Paris, and to lead them to defeat the Burgundian army. Actually it was Louis who did that, with Charles's incomparably bad choices helping him. Still it makes a good story, and an enjoyable historical fantasy. The only thing missing is the Rudolph Friml score from Friml's operetta version, THE VAGABOND KING which did not appear until 1954 on screen. But even without that music it was enjoyable.

Hollywood certainly had reason to thank their lucky stars that Ronald Colman's career straddled both silent and sound films, and that he was of an age where he was still believable as a romantic leading man as sound became the industry standard. Silent films had made him a major star; sound revealed that amazing, distinctive voice, oft imitated but never surpassed, that made him legendary.

Of his amazing output of classic films in the 1930s, IF I WERE KING is one of the most audience-friendly, and, with THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, stands as two of the best swashbucklers of the decade. With a wryly engaging script by the legendary Preston Sturges (based on the famous operatic play by Justin Huntly McCarthy), and the 'no frills' directorial style of veteran director Frank Lloyd (who specialized in action films), the fanciful adventures of vagabond poet François Villon (Colman) may lack the sweep of the Michael Curtiz/Errol Flynn spectacles at Warner Brothers, but makes up for it with humor, a sense of the absurd, and Colman, himself, who could act rings around the younger Flynn.

As fifteenth century Paris is besieged and slowly crushed by Burgundian armies, all that holds the city, and the dream of a united France together, is the iron will of doddering old King Louis XI (brilliantly portrayed by frequent Flynn nemesis Basil Rathbone, who is obviously having a ball in the character role). Meanwhile, the rabble of the city, victims of the corruption of the court, are stirred by the writings of poet/revolutionary Villon, who steals from the rich, dodges authorities nimbly, and is unafraid to speak the truth. While drinking stolen wine with friends at a local inn, he presents such an eloquent case of how he'd change things "If I were King", that Louis, watching in disguise, and well aware of his government's shortcomings, decides to put Villon to the test. Capturing the revelers, he surprises the poet by appointing him Lord High Chancellor for a week, daring him to improve things...and Villon delivers, demanding the Burgundians to surrender(!), opening the food coffers to the starving masses (and forcing the aristocracy out of their well-fed complacency), dispensing justice tempered with mercy, and creating among the lower classes a sense of patriotism and greater purpose towards King and Country.

As the King cackles at the turn of events, the military and aristocracy despise Villon (other than beautiful Katherine de Vaucelles, portrayed by Frances Dee, who falls in love with the Lord High Chancellor, while suspecting him to be the penniless poet who once pledged his love as she attended Mass). As the week draws to a close, and plots and machinations against Villon reach an explosive climax, the future of not only Paris but all of France will depend on the poet's quick wit, decisiveness, and ability to rouse the masses.

While the history portrayed is fanciful, Ronald Colman is the perfect embodiment of the charismatic Villon, and Rathbone's cranky gruffness offers the ideal compliment to Colman's suave persona.

If the film has a fault, it is in the print itself, which is showing signs of deterioration and aging. One hopes that it will be a candidate for restoration, soon.

IF I WERE KING should be preserved for future generations to enjoy!