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George Arliss: Stars
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One of George Arliss' "smaller" vehicles, The King's Vacation casts the eminent British stage star (always billed as "Mr. George Arliss") as an abdicating monarch. Seeking the simple life, he comes to America in search of the wife (Marjorie Gateson) he'd been forced to divorce years earlier in order keep his crown.
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George Arliss stars as a kindly 18th-century English parson who at night leads a band of smugglers fighting unjust taxes. Fine adventure drama, from the novel that ... inspired "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh," also stars Margaret Lockwood. 90 min.
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By 1931 Arliss was firmly established at Warner Brothers and he sold the studio his and Hamlin's script. After disentangling from some legal complications involving the Broadway producers, two new writers were assigned to make it screen worthy (under the watchful eyes of the original authors). The story centered on two key moments in Hamilton's life and career: his efforts to establish a federal banking system and the near thwarting of that goal through an attempt to blackmail him over an earlier extramarital affair. Liberties were taken with historical fact, of course, but not nearly as many as most other biographical dramas of the time, including Arliss's own. The biggest liberty... was in the age discrepancy between star and subject; in his early 60s, Arliss was more than two decades older than Hamilton when the story takes place. Reviews were generally positive, however, and Alexander Hamilton made a modest profit, not as much as the studio had hoped but enough to carry the star through several more such characterizations, including turns as Voltaire, Cardinal Richelieu, and the first of the Rothschilds.
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This film biography stars George Arliss as Voltaire, the great French philosopher and dramatist. The story follows Voltaire's fight for intellectual freedom and human rights as he defends Nanette Calas (Margaret Lindsay), whose father has been unjustly executed. Voltaire ... attempts to influence the king (Reginald Owen) through Madame de Pompadour (Doris Kenyon), and his popularity with the French people causes the monarch to burn his writings.
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Despite the embarrassment, or perhaps to relieve it, film producer Darryl Zanuck tried to interest Arliss in returning to Hollywood to star in The Pied Piper in 1942. Braving the German aerial bombing of London throughout the war, Arliss remained in his native city where he died of a bronchial ailment in February 1946. Curiously, his gravestone does not refer to his success in the performing arts, but recites the one achievement he was apparently most proud: an honorary Masters of Arts degree he received from Columbia University in 1919.
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That it is not a distinguished effort is no fault of the star, for Arliss is every consecutive inch an actor. Rather it is due to the blood-curdling plot. On the stage, as a rather tongue-in-cheek melodrama by the literary William Archier, it was smart. Brought to the screen it unfortunately suggests too many synthetic thrillers that have gone before.
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