Nothing like a swishy villain once in a while

[tilly_stratford]

Some people have a type of character they're always drawn to, you know? Like they watch a movie or read a book and they come across this character and he/she/it ticks off all the right boxes.

One of mine: The villain's second in command. A bit foppish, a bit vain, often a little (or a lot) less clever than their boss, but always ready to do some backstabbing if there's something in it for them. The moment a character like that gets introduced I know I'm gonna have a good time.

I'd decided it was high time for me to be exposed to The Prisoner of Zenda. All I knew was it featured fencing and was an extremely influential story. I decided to go for the 1937 movie because it had Raymond Massey as Black Michael and I wanted to finally see a Ronald Colman movie. And it was great fun, and then Douglas Fairbanks Jr. slinked onto the scene as Count Rupert.

I can't believe I've been avoiding Fairbanks Jr. just because I don't like his father's movies very much. That was so dumb of me.

The rest of the movie, enjoyable as it was, became secondary. Rupert primly smoking cigarettes, delivering threats with heavy-lidded eyes, cocking his hat, admiring himself in the mirror, wearing very tight trousers. He had more costume changes than the heroine, for goodness' sake. He didn't leave a single box unticked. Now I don't know if I want to watch more Fairbanks Jr. movies or just keep rewatching this one.

Comments

[athenegenia.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine is hoping to run a LARP where one of the countries is Ruritania, and I think I may end up using this film (and character) as a large inspiration!