Product Details

• Actors: Lewis Stone, Ramon Novarro
• Directors: Rex Ingram
• Format: Black & White, DVD, Silent, NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Grapevine Video
• DVD Release Date: June 21, 2011
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00161C3KW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276,583 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

While the weak and drunken King Rudolph of Ruritania awaits his coronation, he is drugged by his brother, Black Michael, who is preparing a coup d'etat. Michael's plans are thwarted by the substitution at Rudolph's coronation of Rassendyll, an Englishman who is the King's exact double. A rare find of this excellent version of the classic story. Rex Ingram was one of the great visual stylists of the silent cinema. Strong performances from Ingram's wife Alice Terry and the marvelous Lewis Stone. While Ramon Novarro has top billing, Stone actually has the lead role - Ramon's role is a supporting one as an evil nobleman. But he is splendid - darkly handsome with a little beard and a monocle - and convincingly evil. It is interesting to see him before he became type-cast as the energetic sweet boy - he shows here that he had more range as an actor than he was allowed to show.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Version of Oft-told Tale, August 14, 2010

By 

STARGAZER (UTAH, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner of Zenda (DVD)

The 1922 "Prisoner of Zenda" is surely one of the best silent films ever made. Its major actors knew better than to over-emote and it obviously had a very competent director in Rex Ingram. Even though the plot,costumes, and scenery are straight out of an operetta, the players mostly come off as natural, demonstrating that good acting was not something that somehow emerged with the advent of sound. Even Ramon Navarro as the villainous Rupert of Hentzau shows himself to be far more than just a pretty face as he turns his role into a droll, animated tour de force.

The picture begins in the manor house of Englishman Rudolph Rassendyll, the camera zeroing in on the extremely beautiful eyes of Lewis Stone, by now a 43-year-old stage veteran who, in most other respects, looks like a rather ordinary middle-aged man in trim physical condition. But, of course, there is nothing ordinary about Stone's histrionic talent and, besides, he has all the charm that made him so beloved as Judge Hardy about 15 years later in the "Andy Hardy" series. Rassendyll decides to attend the coronation of his cousin, Rudolph of Ruritania, [whose twin he could be] and finds his kinsman to be a dissipated mess. Lewis Stone plays both parts, needless to say. The weak king-to-be has an ambitious but evil brother, Duke Michael, who plots to seize the throne for himself and kill Rudolph in the process. On the eve before the coronation, the duke arranges for his brother to be drugged so that he will not be in any shape to attend the ceremony. Therefore, the king's loyalists persuade the British Rassendyll to take his place for a day and keep Michael from having his way.

The Ruritarian Rudolph has a beautiful fiancee played by the luminous Alice Terry. The couple do not have much use for one another but she is a popular princess who would serve to bolster Rudolph's own shaky position. However, Rassendyll and the lovely girl take to one another at once and, sensing an unexpected change in her intended, the princess no longer sees her role as future queen as a mere duty. Of course, the plot thickens and there is another female involved, played by the alluring but less natural actress, Barbara La Marr. Rudolph Rassendyll cannot go home to England after the coronation but must stay on in order to help rescue his endangered royal cousin. There is skull-duggery aplenty and sword-play, too. All make for a fascinating film and it is quite a revelation to see how effective a younger, doe-eyed version of old Judge Hardy is in the love scenes. Pretty sexy!
It is probably no accident that the actor who played the dual role in the next "Prisoner of Zenda", Ronald Colman, resembled Lewis Stone quite a lot.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Buy the Grapevine DVD, August 7, 2011

By 

Dennis M. Southwood - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Prisoner of Zenda (DVD)

The five-star review here must be for the Warner Brothers Archive Collection DVD of "The Prisoner of Zenda." If it were for the Grapevine Video release, I'm sure it would have mentioned the abysmal quality of the DVD. Grapevine's transfer to DVD was made from an extremely bad print of the film, with absolutely no attempt at restoration. Many of the title cards are so dark as to be unreadable; surely it would have been a simple matter to create new title cards for this release--unless the Grapevine people couldn't read them either. The contrast in one section of the film is so high that characters and objects are reduced to featureless blobs on the screen.

I agree completely with the other reviewer's comments on the acting and the cinematic qualities of the 1922 film. I'll be returning the Grapvine DVD, and I'm willing to try the Warner Brothers release, but in the meantime I'll stick with the 1937 Ronald Coleman version.