1952 - THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, the remake

 Well if it worked once it will work again.  MGM purchased the rights for a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda from producer David O Selznick for a cool $225,000. Previously the studio had a success with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr in their remake of King Soloman's Mines, so Granger and Kerr were teamed up again this time with Granger as Rudolf Rassendyl and the King of Ruritania and Deborah Kerr a performer who was born to be filmed in technicolor, as  Princess Flavia.

What's so interesting about this remake of the 1937 film is that the director Richard Thorpe literally duplicated every scene right down to using the same camera angles and dialog.  The sets and the costumes even look the same.  MGM also used Alfred Newman's score from the 1937 version.  Incredibly this film was shot in a month since there was no need to get very creative after all they were just rehashing the original.

About the only differences in the two films were that this version was shot in color and the action scenes were staged better.  Ronald Colman in the original film was a fine actor but looked a little stiff in the sword fight scenes.  Steward Granger seems to handle a saber with a little more panache. 

How's the film?  Well not that bad.  The story if rather on the far fetched side is entertaining and the damn thing apparently made a good profit for MGM.  In 1998 Universal Studios and director Gus Van Sandt tried the same stunt doing a scene for scene remake of Hitchcock's  Psycho but this time this gimmick didn't pay off, the film was a flop financially and critically.

The screenwriters are basically the same bunch from the first film since this was a slavish remake, the running time is 96 minutes.