No film with a cast that includes Oliver Reed as Bismark, Florinda Bolkan as Lola Montes and Henry Cooper as John Gully can be entirely without interest to the scholar. And directing this elaborately mounted adaptation from his own novel by George MacDonald Fraser, Dick Lester had at his disposal expensive locations photographed by Oscar-winning cameraman Geoffrey Unsworth and an amazing cast both old (Alistair Sim) and up & coming (Bob Hoskins, David Jason).
Unfortunately Lester seems overwhelmed by the lavishness of the production, which goes on for far too long and has a noisy score by Ken Thorne that makes the frantic shenanigans less rather than more amusing. Presumably it was Fraser's original novel that returned once more to the plot of 'The Prisoner of Zenda', but that was hardly an original idea, since the story had already been pastiched only ten years earlier in 'The Great Race'; only to be soon followed by yet another mirthless parody starring Peter Sellars, also featuring, as here, Lionel Jeffries.
Unfortunately Lester seems overwhelmed by the lavishness of the production, which goes on for far too long and has a noisy score by Ken Thorne that makes the frantic shenanigans less rather than more amusing. Presumably it was Fraser's original novel that returned once more to the plot of 'The Prisoner of Zenda', but that was hardly an original idea, since the story had already been pastiched only ten years earlier in 'The Great Race'; only to be soon followed by yet another mirthless parody starring Peter Sellars, also featuring, as here, Lionel Jeffries.