I opted to check this out after I realized that I had a number of films dealing with the life and times of British King Charles II (a character, albeit prior to his occupying the throne, around whom the recently-viewed THE MOONRAKER {1958} revolves); incidentally, I was under the impression that the surname of the titular figure had an extra 'n' at the end – which made it difficult for me to locate its entry on IMDb! Furthermore, it transpired that the copy I acquired – albeit sourced from the official R2 DVD edition – ran for a mere 72 minutes (in PAL mode) against the official 86!
The film was obviously proposed as a vehicle for leading lady Anna Neagle – who, as it happened, was director Wilcox's spouse and one of Britain's top stars of her time. She plays an orange-seller (though often mentioned, she is never shown peddling this trade!) and stage actress who catches the eye of the King (played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke – managing, in spite of the nature of the role, to largely eschew the cheerlessness that marks much of his work!), openly becoming his mistress even though he is officially betrothed to a haughty French Duchess! The two women's sparring for royal attention takes up much of the running-time (with the noblewoman even maneuvering to make Nell look like she is playing Hardwicke for a fool by inventing a liaison with Hay Petrie as the ambassador of her own country!) – but the result is certainly good-looking (this being an early assignment for celebrated cinematographer Freddie Young) and professionally enough assembled to rise above "woman's picture" fare. That said, just as prominent are the musical numbers (that smack rather more of 20th century music-halls than Restoration-era England!) in which audiences – the King included! – enthusiastically join in.
The plot traces the central relationship to its bitter end, when Nell (having already suffered the ignominy of being looked down upon by the aristocracy) is barred from sharing the King's final moments (while the Duchess sensibly flees the scene of her own accord) and leaves the royal quarters alone. Even so, her earthy background – which sees her rubbing elbows daily with scarred but pensionless war veterans (among whom, presumably, is Will Hay regular Moore Marriott
but I sure did not recognize him!) – leads her to instigate a reform of this kind, shown via superimposed footage of the institution concerned as it stood in 1934! By the way, the script is credited as only having "additional dialogue" by Miles Malleson (here also playing one of Hardwicke's closest collaborators) – with the majority supplied by the characters themselves (including MP Samuel Pepys, with the narrative appearing as though it were 'torn' from his personal diary)! For the record, I have a number of other Neagle/Wilcox efforts in my collection – among which is her second turn as Queen Victoria in SIXTY GLORIOUS YEARS (1938), which I may just get to in the current Easter epic marathon...
