Rank films of the 50s, which play so often on ABC television in the early hours of the morning, have a very strong uniform "feel": the interchangeable brylcreamed male leads (Ronald Lewis, Anthony Steele) and statuesque pretty females who lacked decent roles to play (Belinda Lee, Sylvia Syms, Mary Ure, etc), shot in that lovely colour and usually with some strong older actors in support and about some exotic subject matter (eg Mau Mau, communists, the Pacific) or else were gentle comedies with some star (eg Norman Wisdom). I enjoy many of the films: even if the results were often mediocre, they were usually pleasantly so.
This is one of Rank’s better efforts at the time, starting with a strong central idea: Louis XVII arrives in balloon and is held up in a castle in the Welsh coast. That’s a terrific basis for a movie and there’s plenty of plots: local French revolutionary spies, splits within the royalist factions, splits with the revolutionaries, etc. There are also an intriguing pair of adversaries: Louis Jourdan, so devoted to the king he gives up his own son in the king’s place, and Keith Michell as the revolutionary unhappy with how bloody his reforms have begun.
At first it seems the film is going to be a bit challenging: Jourdan in his first scene is shown to be a fanatic, but disappointingly this is never developed; when he and female lead Belinda Lee starts making eyes at each other you know Jourdan’s meant to be the hero and Michell’s doomed for a skewered ending. (Someone really should have called Jourdan on being a fanatic a bit more – I mean Louise XVI was a dictator, for crying out loud).
Lee (beautiful and engaging but a little low on the charisma side) starts off an intriguing character, an American who befriends the boy – but then she just becomes a thing to worry about Jourdan and be brave for the boy. They could have made more with her, especially the whole republican-being-confused-by-feelings-to-royalty thing (casting an American actor would have held).
It’s a shame also there isn’t more action, because when it comes it’s pretty good. But the story is strong, the décor sumptuous, there are some avant garde dream sequences, and Louis XVII (a whiny little squirt, clearly not worthy of anyone’s devotion) is played by a young Richard O’Sullivan, who would grow up to play a series of lecherous doctors/cooks/ad men in British sitcoms.
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