Which 1937 adventure film stars Ronald Colman in a dual role as Rudolf Rassendyll and King Rudolf V?

The 1937 adventure film starring Ronald Colman in a dual role as Rudolf Rassendyll and King Rudolf V is The Prisoner of Zenda.

John Cromwell directed this American adaptation of Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel and its stage version. Colman plays an English gentleman who travels to the fictional kingdom of Ruritania and discovers that he looks remarkably like its king. When the king is drugged and kidnapped before his coronation, Rassendyll impersonates him to prevent a political coup. Colman therefore portrays both the ordinary aristocratic visitor and the monarch he must replace.

The cast includes Madeleine Carroll as Princess Flavia, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Rupert of Hentzau, and David Niven as Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim. The film is often regarded as the strongest screen version of Hope’s story. A common mix-up is with the 1952 Technicolor remake, which follows much of the same script and staging but stars Stewart Granger rather than Colman.

The 1937 production was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1991.