Apart some few Sellers's movies where he was really funny,all remains is hard to watch,this one is palatable and has funny moments really,on triple acting this movie is a spoof of so good movie made previously by Stewart Granger,quite often Sellers didn't make me laugh,but this turn is quite acceptable acting,having a valuable supporting casting as the funiest Lionel Jeffries,an already older Elke Sommer and the gorgeous newcomer Lynne Frederick!!Resume:First watch: 1991 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7

No normal man should miss seeing Lynne Frederick as Flavia in this version, at least no normal man with a taste for neoteny. This young woman has the huge eyes and slightly woeful features of a ringtail lemur from Madagascar. No kidding. When she's surprised, her eyes open so wide that the white surround the irises. I tried it in the mirror and I can't do it. She looks every bit the princess. Not an elegant princess like Deborah Kerr but the kind of princess who, through the ruse of deceptive innocence, might deliberately invite your attentions and then swallow you up alive.Peter Sellers does what he can to turn his two parts into comic turns. As the King, he substitutes "w" for "r". As the dragooned London cabbie he looks worried, suspicious, indignant, and terribly puzzled. The script doesn't give him an opportunity to do much else. He could do a lot with a little when the opportunity was afforded him -- hilarious as Dr. Pratt in "The Wrong Box", constantly stoned, who writes his signature, "William Pratt, MD" and then reads it aloud as "William Prattmd." No such luck here. His best line comes when he's staring through a stereoscope, giggling, and says, "Oh, she got no knickers on." Most of the cast are stalwarts about ten years past their prime, but still good at what they do. There has rarely been a better villain, especially with a German accent, than the pebbly-faced Jeremy Kemp. John Laurie, the foul-tempered farmer in Hitchock's "39 Steps," is the Archbishop who knocks on wood for good luck, then turns around and stutters, "Uh, come in." Graham Stark is Erik, the flat-faced, dubious palace butler, who practically owns this kind of role. Lionel Jeffries staggers through the part of General Sapt, trying to hold Ruritania together. As Rupert of Hentzau, Stuart Wilson is flat and completely lacking in the wicked charm of, say, Douglad Fairbanks, Jr. As Sapt's orderly, Simon Williams creates a hole on the screen whenever he appears.The gags may once have been titillating but we've evolved beyond most of them. There are a couple of gay gags that look moth eaten by now. The director is Richard Quine, who knows his craft but brings nothing special to the enterprise. It looks as if the script were followed verbatim and the script is weak. It lacks wit. Blake Edwards would have probably handled it more deftly and allowed more spontaneous input, as he did with "The Pink Panther" and a number of other comedies that might not have looked promising on paper. The musical score follows suit, apparently thinking the pratfalls are funnier than they are. Maybe none of the gags are as thoughtful as the name of the local gunsmith -- Walther Luger.Of course, Anthony Hope Hawkins wrote the novel in chipped stone sometime during the Neolithic and the story has been around so long that it deserves to be parodied. There is a successful example too. You can find it near the end of "The Great Race" with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon.

This must be one of his best movies. The movie was made on location in Austria. The Castle in Vienna is the real Schoenbrunn castle where the empire of the Habsburg monarchy ruled for almost a 1000 years. The sets are original and outstanding. Peter Sellers played a double role where he plays a London cab driver (coachman) Sydney Frewin who is a look a like of the crown prince Rudolf of Rurotania who's brother wants to get rid of him and take on the crown himself after the death of their father. The movie starts when the King dies celebrating his 80tiest birthday in a balloon. When he accidentally punctures his balloon with a cork from his Champaign bottle, plummets to the ground, his balloon gets tangled up onto a tree in a village square and then he finally falls into the well below while giving a speech to the locals from the tree in the balloon. Crown prince Rudolf's spends most of his time in the London Saloons but he must return to Rurtania where his life is in danger. The London cab driver, Sydney Freud is accidentally discovered as look a like by the crown princes assistant and send ahead to Rurotania as a decoy. Sydney Freud is unaware of the real reason why he was offered a good position in Rurotania till he arrives there. Prince Rudolf has an affair with a beautiful countess. When her husband the count discovers this he is also after the crown prince. As the real prince gets kidnapped, Sydney takes his place till the real prince can be recovered. Sydney can not understand at first why the count is always after him wanting to slit his throat.. There is too much to tell but the movie has a happy ending where Sydney Frewin becomes the King and the princess gets the man she really loves. The real crown prince Rudolf goes back to London this time as Sydney Freud where he does what he loves best. Visiting the London gambling clubs and maintaining his affair with the countess. Great family entertainment! The only bad thing about this movie is that it's not available.

The 1979 remake of Hope's Zenda story is a prime example of the sort of poor judgement Peter Sellers was so often subject to in his choice of films. The whole thing is roundly dispiriting to watch, and "palpably uneasy" as Halliwell's Film Guide comments. The script lacks any sense of the comic or adventurous that one would expect of a Zenda filming with Sellers. So often, exaggeration and chatter take the place of any sort of acting. Even Sellers, often impressive in such bad films, creates two very uninteresting characters, based it seems, solely on the rather stereotypical voices he creates for them. Other performances pass by, indistinguishable from each other and unwanted. John Laurie has nothing to do whatsoever, the token females are particularly dull... the whole thing is completely pointless and all too far from being enjoyable... Most certainly as bad, if not worse than the more derided "The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu". Rating:- */*****