The Prisoner of Zenda (1913)

Directed by

Edwin Stanton Porter

Genre

silent film, romance film

Country

United States

Runtime

55 min

Rating

3.5 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An Englishman on holiday in the fictional country of Ruritania agrees to impersonate the kidnapped king. He must navigate court intrigue and romance while keeping up the disguise.

old-fashionedromanticadventurousstatelytheatricalbreezy

What happens

The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1913 silent film adaptation of a play by Edward E. Rice, which was in turn based on the 1894 Anthony Hope novel of the same name. It was directed by Edwin S. Porter and Hugh Ford, and starred stage actor James K. Hackett, Beatrice Beckley and David Torrence. In 1913, Adolph Zukor lured Hackett from the stage to star in a role which Hackett had played in the theater numerous times. Since feature films were in their infancy, Hackett was at first reluctant to take the part, so Zukor tried to convince Hackett in person; as Neal Gabler writes, "When Hackett came to visit Zukor, he was the very picture of the faded matinee idol. He wore a fur-collared coat with frayed sleeves and carried a gold-headed cane". According to silentera.com, the Library of Congress possesses two paper positive prints, and the International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman Museum also has a partial positive print. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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