The Prisoner of Zenda (1952 film)
Overview
1952 in film
The year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
version of the classic novel of the same name
The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda is an adventure novel by Anthony Hope, published in 1894. The king of the fictional country of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus unable to attend his own coronation. Political forces are such that in order for the king to retain his crown his...
by Anthony Hope
Anthony Hope
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope , was an English novelist and playwright. Although he was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels, he is remembered best for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau...
and a remake of the famous 1937 film version
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film)
The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1937 black-and-white adventure film based on the Anthony Hope 1894 novel of the same name and the 1896 play. Of the many film adaptations, this is considered by many to be the definitive version....
. This version was made by Loew's and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, directed by Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe was an American film director.Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred...
and produced by Pandro S. Berman
Pandro S. Berman
Pandro Samuel Berman , was an American film producer.-Biography:His father, Henry Berman, was general manager of Universal Pictures during Hollywood's formative years. The younger Berman, Pandro Samuel, was an assistant director during the 1920s under Mal St. Clair and Ralph Ince...
.
The screenplay, attributed to Noel Langley
Noel Langley
Noel Langley was a successful novelist, playwright, screenwriter and director. While under contract to MGM he was one of the screenwriters for The Wizard of Oz...
, was nearly word-for-word identical to the one used in the 1937 version, which was by John L. Balderston
John L. Balderston
John L. Balderston was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for his horror and fantasy scripts....
, adapted by Wells Root, from the Hope novel and the stage play by Edward Rose
Edward Rose
Edward Rose was an English dramatist and playwright, best known for his adaptations of novels for the stage, mainly The Prisoner of Zenda. He was also the theatre critic for The Sunday Times.-Biography:...
, with additional dialogue by Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...
.
The film stars Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...
, Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
and James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
with Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern
Louis Calhern was an American stage and screen actor.- Early life :Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt on February 19, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up...
, Robert Douglas
Robert Douglas (actor)
Robert Douglas was born as Robert Douglas Finlayson in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire. He was a successful stage and film actor, a television director and producer....
, Jane Greer
Jane Greer
Jane Greer was a film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past.-Career:...
and Robert Coote
Robert Coote
Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.-Biography:Coote was educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex...
.
The music score was by Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest...
(who also scored the 1937 version) and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg
Joseph Ruttenberg
Joseph Ruttenberg, A.S.C. was a photojournalist and cinematographer.Ruttenberg was accomplished winning accolades. At MGM, Ruttenberg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography ten times, winning four. In addition, he won the 1954 Golden Globe Award for his camera work on the...
.
Quotations
There are definitely people I respect and I love their music, but there was never really an artist that I said, "I want to be just like them, I love the way their career is going. I love their music." It wasn't really like that. I wanted to be like myself.
Well, I'm not going to be singing about lollipops because I no longer relate to lollipops.
No, I don't do that [sing about sex]. My music isn't forward like that. It's not sexual the way Britney Spears|Britney's music is sexual. She feels comfortable singing about that, and that's fine, but I just don't talk about that kind of stuff, sorry. I just don't.
Compared to the first album, when I wasn't confident enough to make suggestions, this time around, I was very involved. I worked with the songwriters, telling them what was happening in my life, and what I wanted to sing about. If I thought it needed to be more heavy, more rock, I said so. I feel that this record is so much more me. I can't wait for people to hear it.