Considered a major event in its day and deemed of sufficient historical interest to qualify for an entry in the 'The Filmgoers Companion'. Although sarcastically described by Philip Ziegler as "a foolish fandango based vaguely on Carolean politics and the Great Fire of London", while Rachel Low predictably dismissed it as "monumentally slow and dull". Despite Ziegler lamenting in 1981 that at that time only twenty minutes of the film survived and that the quality of the print then available was "so poor that it is hard to be certain what it was really like", 'The Glorious Adventure' by one of those happy chances of film history miraculously survives and can now be viewed on YouTube.
As a film in its own right it frankly resembles the nonsense Herbert Wilcox would soon be making with Anna Neagle. Lady Diana Manners like many society beauties of yesteryear makes little impression in the lead, but compensations can be found in the supporting cast, including Victor McLaglan bearing his teeth and rolling his eyes as 'notorious rogue' Bulfinch, Lennox Pawle (best remembered as Mr Dick in MGM's 1935 version of 'David Copperfield') as a cherubic Samuel Pepys, and the Hon. Lois Sturt as a saucy young Nell Gwynn.
The Prizma Colour process itself (a direct lineal descendant of Cinecolor) does a satisfactory job of rendering both moonlight and the Great Fire of London (staged in a warehouse off the Strand) in the obligatory conflagration that was already the standard conclusion of early colour productions.
