The Royal Bed

This is an early talkie by RKO based on a Broadway play by Robert Sherwood. I caught it one night on the late show on a Baltimore station. Sadly this station doesn't play these old/early sound movies as Turner Classics owns them all now. Needless to say this movie is a spoof or sendup of the trials and tribulations of a European Kingdom teetering on the brink of collapse. This kingdom is at war with it's own people, with neighboring countries as well as suffering from internal intrigue in the court. Director Sherman, in my opinion, is seemingly warming himself up for Becky Sharp three to four years later. There's a scene in Royal Bed in which General Northup(Robert Warwick wonderfully melodramatic)goes to a window of the court and says of his own army: "the stupid artillery, they're shooting the wrong way". Hilarious when you watch it. For fans of Becky Sharp(1935) there's a similar sequence as Rawdon Crawley stands by a window ... and it's filmed in color. Lowell Sherman well past 40 at this time had been acting in theatre since he was a child. He may be remembered today by some buffs as the villain in DW Griffith's silent "Way Down EA(1920) and for other silent films. Little remembered about Sherman is that he was an up & coming director of light, sophisticated, witty comedies in the early 1930s. Royal Bed is one, "Bachelor Apartment" still another as well "High Stakes", "The Pay Off" and one of Katharine Hepburn's earliest films "Morning Glory". This must have seemed natural for Sherman who had spent decades acting on the Broadway stage in this same kind of fare. As fate would have it Sherman was to die in 1934 just as he was hitting his stride... and while he began Becky Sharp, Rouben Mamoulian would end up completing it.

Sherman plays the lead in Royal Bed as the King, Nance O'Neil his discerning wife The Queen, Mary Astor their daughter, the wonderful Robert Warwick(later in Sullivan's Travels and numerous others)as the pompous General Northup and a host of characters. Basically the King is a softy. He's intimidated by his high ranking officials such as Northup. And also by his wife who seems to have been betrothed to the King decades earlier in an arranged marriage. Sherman's tender scenes are with his daughter Mary Astor. Her mother and General Northup want her to enter an arranged marriage so as to make the country look good. And Northup would gain more feathers in his cap so to speak. The girl wants out of the arranged marriage to a fop of an aristocrat. She eventually gets to marry the man she loves, her father's male secretary, after cooing him over. This disappoints her mother who decides to take a vacation to America on an ocean liner. Northup conspires to have the King deposed so that he can take over in a Coup. As the kingdom crumbles Sherman remains a calm and collected monarch eager to toss out one liners and play checkers with his butler. He's a down to earth monarch in a kingdom crying out for leadership.(Can't help wondering how much the recent history of the fall of the Romanovs influenced Sherwood as well as Sherman).

This may be a forgotten little comedy. One of many by RKO. RKO wanted to capitalize off of the hit play. The melodrama aka over-acting may seem corny today. But not really. Melodrama can be fun for the audience. And for the actors quite tiring when you think about it. All of that energy to pronounce vowels and consonants in an exaggerated manner.The interacting between the actors is hilarious as they read their over-the-top dialogue. Robert Warwick's deep stage trained voice is so well recorded that he's my favorite character in this. This is not a bad 90 minutes of viewing. Turner may dust it off once in a while. That's where you'll likely see this and many other Sherman directed early talkies if they don't come to video or dvd.

Only the comical nature of this movie saved it from being completely insufferable. On the one hand we had the oppressed princess and on the other hand we had a down to earth and comical king.

As for the princess, Princess Anne (Mary Astor), she was the typical oppressed princess. You know the one--she can't do anything she wants to do and she's being forced to marry someone she doesn't want to marry. Only if she were a common peasant then she'd be free.

Gag.

Oppression is oppression no matter who is being oppressed, but I still find it difficult to watch a princess complain about how terrible her life is, or how she'd prefer being a beggar over being a princess. It's language like that that makes rich and royalty so unrelatable.

As for the king, King Eric VIII (Lowell Sherman), he was a solid dude. He loved his daughter, liked playing checkers with his palace guard, and was in favor of a republic. He was also in favor of his daughter running off and eloping with her secret lover, Freddie Granton (Anthony Bushell), the king's secretary. The king was in an untenable position that required some deft moves to navigate. He would have to use all of his wits to keep the peace, give his daughter what she wanted, and remain king at the same time. He did what he could and kept it funny all the while.

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Royal Bed is watchable, but only just. I think it was intended to be a farce, but it doesn't have the pacing or the wit necessary for good farce. It's a one-joke film that goes on much, much too long. None of the actors stands out, and many of them fade right into the woodwork. The set and set decoration are mediocre and lack the necessary pomp and circumstance for a film set in a palace. The costume designer succeeds in providing overblown and farcical costumes for the men (many with baggy jackets topping ridiculously tight pegleg trousers). However, the costume designer fails to provide the right farcical tone with the women's costumes. Astor wears a cute riding outfit complete with jodhpurs in the early part of the film, and then later a gorgeous wedding dress. The queen (who is supposed to be that stock character of farce--an interfering busybody) wears several wonderful outfits including a half-length fur stole over a classic walking dress, and a taffeta gown with a gloriously regal train. Overall, I give Royal Bed a 4 out of 10.

As you sit and watch "The Royal Bed", it's very obvious that it was originally a play. It has a talky, stagy style and it seems, at times, like actors pause to wait for the audience to react--when there is no audience. It's also a sad waste of some talents, as Lowell Sherman (a very much unknown and under-appreciated actor today) and Mary Astor were clearly better than this material.

When the film begins, the overbearing queen of a fictional country has announced that she's arranged for a marriage between her daughter and the prince of some other fictional nation. Princess Anne (Astor) is distraught--as she doesn't know this man and she's been secretly in love with a commoner (a rich one, nevertheless). Well, the snobby queen will have nothing to do with this love match, but the king (Sherman) vows to work behind the scene so that Anne will be happy. Unfortunately, a revolution breaks out and the king's promises seem unlikely to be fulfilled. Anne vows to kill herself if she cannot marry her beloved Freddie!

The first 75% of this film was a real snoozer. The stagy dialog and lack of action certainly contributed to this. Fortunately, the film picked up considerably and Sherman certainly was in his element once the film took off. The one who did not come off so well was Astor, as her character just seemed selfish and immature. At one point, she and her father were talking about the impact of her marrying a commoner might have on the revolution and she replied 'let them throw their bombs!'-- wow, what a competent and selfless woman!

Overall, if you can get through the boring first part of the film, the last portion does deliver.

Lowell Sherman stars as a bored king on a European country. He faces a rebellious populace, a rebellious daughter (Mary Astor), and a repulsive wife (Nance O'Neill). Drawing room comedy has its moments and they all belong to Sherman and Astor. Sherman was a master at playing this kind of diffident character. Constantly rolling his eyes, pursing his lips, and waving around his always-present cigarette. It's almost a Bette Davis act before there was a Bette Davis.

J. Carroll Naish plays the Lenin-like revolutionary, Mischa Auer has a bit part as a flunkee, Anthony Bushell is the aide, Hugh Trevor is the prince, Robert Warwick is the bellowing general, and Gilbert Emery is funny as the butler.

Not great but certainly watchable and a must for fans of Lowell Sherman and Mary Astor!