The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda is an adventure novel by Anthony Hope, first published in 1894. It tells the story of a man who resembles the King of the mythical country of "Ruritania", who must impersonate the King when the real monarch is kidnapped. The villain of the book, Rupert of Hentzau, gives his name to its 1898 sequel.
The Zenda books were extremely popular at the time they were published and inspired a host of imitations, including the Graustark novels by George Barr McCutcheon.
Adaptations
The novel has been adapted many times for film and television, the best-known screen version being the 1937 film. It stars Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, David Niven and Douglas Fairbanks Jr..
The movie was adapted by Wells Root, John L. Balderston, Donald Ogden Stewart (additional dialogue) Ben Hecht (uncredited) and Sidney Howard (uncredited) from the novel and the adapted play by Edward E. Rose. It was directed by John Cromwell.
It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Music, Score. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The Prisoner of Zenda has been made several other times:
- 1913 - Starring James K. Hackett, Beatrice Beckley, David Torrence, Fraser Coalter, William R. Randall and Walter Hale. Adapted by Hugh Ford and directed by Ford and Edwin S. Porter.
- 1915 - Starring Henry Ainley, Gerald Ames, George Bellamy, Marie Anita Bozzi, Jane Gail, Arthur Holmes-Gore, Charles Rock and Norman Yates. It was adapted by W. Courtney Rowden and directed by George Loane Tucker
- 1922 - Starring Ramon Novarro, Lewis Stone, Alice Terry, Robert Edeson, Stuart Holmes, Malcolm McGregor and Barbara La Marr. It was adapted by Mary O'Hara and directed by Rex Ingram.
- 1952 - Starring Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Louis Calhern, Jane Greer, Lewis Stone, Robert Douglas, James Mason and Robert Coote. It was adapted by Edward E. Rose, (dramatization) Wells Root, John L. Balderston, Noel Langley and Donald Ogden Stewart (additional dialogue) (originally uncredited). It was directed by Richard Thorpe.
- 1979 - A comic version, starring Peter Sellers, Lynne Frederick, Lionel Jeffries, Elke Sommer, Gregory Sierra, Jeremy Kemp, Catherine Schell, Simon Williams and Stuart Wilson. It was adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and directed by Richard Quine.
Looser adaptations
The 1965 comedy film The Great Race included an extended Zenda-like subplot, including a climactic fencing scene between Tony Curtis and Ross Martin that surpasses any in the serious film adaptations of the novel.
The 1978 Doctor Who serial The Androids of Tara used a similar plot and setting, with the added complication of android doubles of several key characters.
The Prisoner of Zenda, Inc., a 1996 made-for-television version, is set in the modern-day United States and revolves around a high school age boy who is the heir to a large corporation. It stars Jonathan Jackson, Richard Lee Jackson, William Shatner, Don S. Davis, Jay Brazeau and Katharine Isabelle.
In addition, there's a popular anime series called El Hazard: The Magnificent World which borrows much from the Hope novel. In this series, a boy and his friends are transported to another world where he bears a strong resemblance to a missing princess and reluctantly agrees to impersonate her.
