Rex Ingram's stylish romantic adventure revitalized with synchronized symphonic music, digital image enhance-ment, original title cards reproduction, a new opening titles sequence and a new London-to-Ruritania travel montage. Watch and/or download free! (Link at end of post)
When Metro Pictures began production of The Prisoner of Zenda in 1921, Hollywood pundits scoffed and predicted disaster. After all, the story of an Englishman who looks exactly like the soon-to-be crowned king of a central European country and is coerced to play the part of the king after a villainous rival to the throne abducts the real king and imprisons him in the castle dungeon was at best an old-fashioned, fanciful yarn. The widely read 1894 novel by Anthony Hope had been adapted for the stage and there had already been two film versions. Hollywood doomsayers--always the first to pass judgment and the last to consider the facts--decreed that by making yet another film adaptation of Zenda, Metro was beating a dead horse.
But Metro had an ace in the hole--producer-director Rex Ingram. The 30-year-old Irishman had first worked in movies as an actor, then a writer, and in 1916 began producing (or "supervising" as it was then called) and directing. He worked for various companies such as Edison, Vitagraph and Fox in what was then the movie capital of the world, Fort Lee, New Jersey.
In 1920, Ingram went to Hollywood and began working for Metro Pictures at their studio lot at Cahuenga Blvd. and Willoughby Ave. Here, he collaborated with studio executive June Mathis on several films before their history-making production The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse which was not only an enormous success both critically and financially, but also made Rudolph Valentino a star.
Ingram's films were marked with old-world style, elegance and beauty. Director Erich von Stroheim called Ingram "the greatest film director in the world." With The Prisoner of Zenda, Ingram had ample opportunity to showcase his thorough understanding of noble virtues--honor, duty, sacrifice, loyalty--as well as his appreciation of chivalric romance. As Variety said in its review when the film was released, Zenda was "a natural" for the talents of its director.
He was also a connoisseur of talent--or, more importantly, of star quality. When Valentino left Metro for Famous Players-Lasky (a.k.a. Paramount) Ingram discovered another Latin actor with enormous appeal to women, Mexican-born Ramon Novarro, who was cast in the star-making role of Rupert of Hentzau. Another Ingram protegee was Alice Terry, who had worked as an extra in films until Ingram cast her in three of his films. While making Zenda, Ingram and Terry left the studio one Friday, were married in Pasadena and returned to work the following Monday. She continued playing leads in most of his films and the couple remained married until his death in 1950.
The decorative role of Antoinette, mistress of Black Michael, the dastardly rival for the Ruritanian throne, went to tall, dark and tempting Barbara La Marr, who was publicized as "the girl who is too beautiful" for one or both of two incidents. The first happened when La Marr appeared in juvenile court on charges of petty delinquency and the judge said she was too beautiful to be alone in the big city and released her to her parents' care. The second came when she worked as a writer at United Artists and Mary Pickford told her she was too beautiful to be behind the camera and shold become an actress.
La Marr's life was anything but beautiful. When she was 16, she accused her older half-sister, Viola, and Viola's older, married boyfriend of kidnapping her and keeping her locked in a Santa Barbara hotel room for several days--for reason unspecified but easily imagined. The couple released her but stood trial for kidnapping and La Marr testified against them but the case was dropped when police interrogators concluded La Marr's story lacked credibility. Soon after this, she ran away to Arizona for several weeks and returned claiming she and a wealthy rancher had eloped to Mexico but soon after the wedding her husband died of pneumonia. The same year, she married again and was soon divorced. The pattern continued until, by 1922, she had gone through four husbands--or five, if the dubious first marriage is included.
In 1920, La Marr began acting in films, usually in secondary roles as a femme fatale. Two major career boosts came in 1921 when she was cast first in Douglas Fairbanks' The Three Musketeers followed by The Prisoner of Zenda. Accompanying the fame generated by these hit films, La Marr's notoriety as a premiere party girl of the Hollywood night life grew as well. In a fan-magazine interview, she was quoted as saying she never slept more than two hours a day because she had better things to do than sleep. Booze became her drug of choice and because binge drinking caused weight problems, she often went on crash diets. Rumor had it that she once took a pill containing a tapeworm in order to help her loose weight fast.
Her reckless lifestyle led to increasing health problems, including pulmonary tuberculosis and kidney disease. While working on a film in late 1925, she collapsed on the set and was rushed to the hospital, where she lapsed into a coma. By the end of December, she had physically deteriorated to the point that she reportedly weighed just 88 pounds. In January, 1926, the girl who is too beautiful became the girl who was too beautiful. Barbara La Marr died at her parents' home in Altadena, California. She was 29 years old.
Now see Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, Alice Terry, Lewis Stone and Malcolm MacGregor in the GCM Production of a MaxManLA Video, Rex Ingram's The Prisoner of Zenda with synchronized symphonic music, digital image enhancement, original title cards reproduction, a new opening titles sequence and a new London-to-Ruritania travel montage.
The link below offers FREE online viewing as well as several FREE downloading options of the complete film.
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1922)
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