The Masquerader

It is a shame this film is so hard to find. Ronald Coleman does an excellent job in his dual role of Chilcote/Loder. The two characters are quite opposite and I might venture to call his delivery remarkable. It is similar in some ways to the Prisoner of Zenda, which indeed is a good film, but I prefer the ending of this one. Elissa Landi, her usual sweet and serenely beautiful self, is the model of a faithful wife. She did an excellent job as the wronged, but still loving wife who returns to help her husband in a time of need. It is a great shame that she did not make more films and is not better remembered to-day. She almost always played gentle, ladylike, loving, and thoughtful roles and did so very convincingly. Combine that with being very pretty and you have a good actress in my opinion. Try to find this one on ebay!!

...about a drug addicted British MP, who is falling apart, who encounters a lookalike cousin in a London fog, later seeks him out to replace him in the House of Commons the following day when a great speech is expected of him. Not surprisingly for a melodrama of this kind the cousin accepts the offer and carries off the speech with flying colors to the praise of all England. It then becomes difficult for the cousin to extricate himself from his fake ID, however, things becoming even more complicated when the MP's wife returns home from France.

These two cousins are so alike, not only in appearance but voice that nobody, of course, can tell them apart, including the wife as well as the MP's mistress. Despite the silliness and familiarity of the story, once you get past the implausibilities of the plot, The Masquerader is a fun film (impossible to take seriously, of course) thanks to the charm and skill of Ronald Colman in the dual roles of druggie MP and smooth talking imposter cousin. It reminds one of Colman's similar dual turn four years later in The Prisoner of Zenda.

Elissa Landi plays the MP's wife who, after a strained marriage with the MP, falls in love all over again with her imposter husband. Halliwell Hobbes, forever cast as a butler, is in that familiar role once again, only this time he's the only one in the film who actually knows there are two Colmans. The split screen effects, by the way, in which we see Colman sharing the screen with Colman, are expertly achieved, on a par with the similar effects in Zenda a few years later.

The main plot idea in this film is that two cousins are completely alike physically--so much so that when one substitutes for another no one knows! Although this is a familiar film and TV theme (such as in "The Patty Duke Show"), it is rather stupid--cousins don't look THAT close to each other and how could they account for the same voice and mannerisms? My advice is to try to look past this impossibility and just enjoy this wonderful film. And, by the way, that's my same advice for another Ronald Colman film made just a few years later--where, in THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, you are expected to believe that distant cousins are spitting images! Now, provided you can look past all this, the film is actually quite good.

The film begins with Ronald Colman #1. He's a drug-addicted member of the British parliament and his party is disappointed in him again and again because he is almost totally incapacitated by the drug he drinks. They never really say WHAT it is--I assume it's Laudanum. Anyways, when this falling down addict discovers that he's got a long lost and identical cousin (Ronald Colman #2), he begs the cousin to take his place. Unfortunately, things do too well--as the longer the substitute pretends to be the once-great parliamentarian, the bigger his reputation becomes! To make things worse, Ronald Colman #1's estranged wife is now attracted to who she THINKS is her husband and Ronald Colmen #2 is too nice a guy to just sleep with her! The whole thing sounds a bit comedic, but it's not. However, it is a nice drama with romantic overtones.

What makes it so good is the wonderful performances by Colman (he is his usual erudite self) as well as good writing--particularly the ending which is NOT what you'd normally expect and increased my love for this film immensely.

I consider myself fortunate to finally get to see The Masquerader for the first time in about forty years. Ronald Colman's dual performance as a dissolute Member of Parliament and his lookalike writer cousin still holds up well.

Finding out that the basis for the film version, a second version I might add of this film was a 1904 novel knocked certain notions from my head. I do think that the modern crisis alluded to in the film is based on the General Strike that Great Britain was undergoing in 1926. It would not surprise me if newsreels of the period were incorporated into the film. In real life however Stanley Baldwin's government was not toppled, in fact most historians give him great kudos for his handling of the crisis.

As the story opens party members are looking to promising young MP Colman for some brilliant oratory that will topple the existing government which is unable to cope with a domestic crisis. Greatness calls but Colman is not answering. He's become alcohol and drug dependent with the demands of public life coming on top of a bad domestic situation with both wife Elissa Landi and mistress Juliette Compton making his private life hell as well.

A passing run in that Colman has with his lookalike cousin gives butler Halliwell Hobbes an idea. Cousin Colman substitutes for the MP and does rally the party and becomes the toast of the nation. The cousin also has to do some fast thinking on his feet as far as the wife and mistress are concerned.

I think the character of the MP is based on Lord Randolph Churchill who for reasons of his own dissolute enjoyment of the vices took a rapid tumble in a brilliant career to be. His son certainly fulfilled the promise that that father had. As for the film itself I venture to say that the lookalike substitution may have its inspiration from The Man In The Iron Mask. And if you think about the MGM comedy Callaway Went Thataway has a very similar plot development. Of course that one was played strictly laughs and laughs are very few in The Masquerader.

Ronald Colman was nothing short of brilliant here, excelling in both roles. Kudos should also be given to Halliwell Hobbes who played many butlers in his career, but was never better here. In the end Hobbes is entrusted with a secret that could involve the history of the realm itself.

Ronald Colman is better known for playing that other dual role in The Prisoner Of Zenda. He may very well have been cast in that part by David O. Selznick on the strength of what he did here in The Masquerader.

It's a very funny comedy, it's a moving drama, it's a heartfelt tragedy, it's a great feel-good movie, it's a clever satire, it's exciting....it's simply brilliant! As absurdly far-fetched the story is, you still believe in what you're watching.

It's set in the 1920s, a time when countries were looking for "a great man" to save them from the economic catastrophe of the paying for the war. We also had the much more serious, GABRIEL OVER THE WHITEHOUSE where a 'fascist' president took over the US - that was in a time when fascism hadn't turned into what it became and wasn't a dirty word yet. I wonder did Oswald Mosley watch these films and thought this could be about him? Had he not gone so horribly, horribly off-track, he might very well have been a great leader instead of what he became. In this, Ronald Colman's charismatic and inspiring MP might have been that man once upon a time but not now. It's for the other Ronald Colman to save the day! Although this is a daft comedy, it does engage your brain and get those little grey cells working.

If today you tried to pitch a film idea to a studio of something like a mix between TOP HAT with THE WEST WING you'd get booted out of the office but that is kind of one way to describe this. Amazingly it doesn't just work, it really works. If you enjoying a comedy with proper serious acting and a clever plot, you should love this.

Both Ronald Colmans (Colmen?) are at their charming and erudite best. Their performances and the overall exceptional production values makes the utterly preposterous story seem perfectly plausible and great fun. The film has a lovely warm comforting assurance to it. You know from the first five minutes what's going to happen so you can relax in its gently massaging water as it hugs you to the inevitable happy ending.

This is one of those early thirties pictures that's as entertaining today as the day it when it was made. You don't need to like ancient movies to like this one, just well-made ones.