All the King's Horses

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. read more