ROMANTIC ADVENTURE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22318, 4 February 1938, Page 18

ROMANTIC ADVENTURE

Ronald Colman in "The Prisoner of Zenda"

All the beauty, colour, and swashbuckling adventure of the famous Anthony Hope romance is presented in the film production of "The Prisoner of Zenda," which is coming to the Avon. Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, and Douglas Fairbanks, jun., play the leading roles-. Ronald Colman has the dual role of King Rudolf V and the adventurous Rassendyll in this tale of love and intrigue among the courts of Europe. Madeleine Carroll plays the beautiful Princess Flavia, and young Fairbanks is seen as the dashing Rupert of Hentzau. Also prominently featured in the cast are Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, and David Niven. Ronald Colman has succeeded m imparting to his dual role in "The Prisoner of Zenda" the most distinct separation of two personalities -ever portrayed on the screen by a single star. . As King Rudolf, a reigning monarch, and Rudolf Rassendyll, an English gentleman, he appears as two persons whose personalities and traits are different, though their looks are the same. . , . _ , Mirrors entered the picture "? Coltnan's rehearsals for the most difficult parts—those in which Rudolf and Rasgendyll meet, shake hands, and dis-

cuss matters both humorous and serious. To make sure that his reactions to certain lines would differ from character to character, Colman observed himself as he ran through each part. If changes in technique were needed, he made them. "The king." explained Colman, is a sort of light-hearted fellow without too much regard for his _ obligations, and quite a liking for wine. He greet things with a jest on his lips, and perhaps just a trace of bitterness for thp isolation his exalted position brings. • "Rassendyll, on the other hand, is more serious, though ready in wit and with jest. He is daring, adventurous, but quite level-headed." The actual placing of the two characters on the screen at the same time, with their amazing exchanges of greetings, is a carefully-guarded technical secret. But, according to tne director, John Cromwell, each person is strikingly different from the other, in spite of the fact that Colman plays both. . Sixtv-two sets, ranging in size from a sentry-box no larger than a telephone booth, to a huge cathedral and two castles, were constructed for the picture. According to Harold Fenton, head of the Selznick International studio construction department, the 41,900 man-hours of labour involved would be sufficient for the erection of 40 fiveroomed dwellings.