This was the second of the Herbert Wilcox features Flynn did with Wilcox's wife, Dame Anna Neagle, in the wake of the William tell disaster. He needed a paycheck and got two of them. As with virtually all of Flynn's perpetually dismissed 1950's films, it is an 'A' level film with a good cast and production values. The problem is, it's also very old-fashioned, a 'Ruritanian romance" complete with some unmemorable songs sung in an operatic fashion, (Maria Callas had nothing to worry about here.) The best musical number, a dream sequence involving Wymore, seems to have been inspired by Oklahoma's "Out of MY Dreams", which is far better.
The film features not only Wilcox's wife but also Flynn's Patrice Wymore, not long before their marriage came apart. Errol plays the crown prince of 'Laurentia' who has never gotten along with his parents or their ministers and has been living in Monte Carlo with Nagle, "the woman he loves". Flynn's Prince Richard is a combination of England's Edward VIII, Austria's Crown Prince Rudolph, (of Mayerling fame) and Egypt's King Farouk, whom Flynn new well. It's also the first film playing a character who drinks a lot. In some scenes he's kind of like the silly character he portrayed in his TV appearances of the time, (see What's My Line, the Steve Allen Show and others). Wymore once said of Flynn: "I found generally that when he was at his lowest ebb or most frightened, he would appear to be at his gayest. I had to know him quite some time before I was able to recognize his low ebbs". Prince, then King Richard has a similar trait: he gets silly when being informed that the King is dead and he must come back to assume that role and when he meets the bride that has been arranged for him. But he can also be quite serious, fall legitimate in love and hate and also be idealistic to battle his father's ministers, (and his mother) to make reforms in the Kingdom.
Unfortunately he loses that political battle and is forced to abdicate when those ministers foment a popular movement against him based on his previous misbehavior as a playboy prince. Neagle plays his long-time love who decides she ahs to give him up so he can attend his responsibilities are King, husband and father. Wymore is the arranged bride who comes to love him, (but was moving in the other direction in real life). This was the second time Flynn had witnessed the coronation of a child king in a film: the first was 1937's 'The Prince and the Pauper'.
It's not all that bad a film and would be better without the musical numbers. Flynn's mercurial performance is the best thing in it. Unlike the first Wilcox film, it was not successful the box office. Flynn's career was slipping but he was still a star and a comeback was just around the corner.
