Bonnie Prince Charlie

It is difficult to imagine the producer choosing to run with such a poor script. The story of Bonnie Prince Charlie is well loved by so many and it deserved a good treatment. The script is uninteresting, the costumes are cheesy and the acting is bland, especially by David Niven as the Prince himself.

The story is not well put together. I barely knew I had witnessed the end of Culloden, one of Scotland's most famous battles and that the Prince has moved on to his flight into exile. The characters do not seem to be embodying their parts well. If you like battle re-enactments, it may be worth the checking out, but historical drama this is not (neither well-done history nor dramatic).

I was anxious to rent Bonnie Prince Charlie, because I knew the backstage story behind the movie. David Niven met his second wife while filming in Scotland, and after a whirlwind courtship, brought her back to America. What a surprise for her to first see him on the set, blond, without his signature mustache, and in a 1700s costume!

If you're actually interested in the story, you'll get to see The Niv rallying troops and trying to take back the throne that belongs to his family. He sparks a great rebellion as he tries to assert his birthright, and along the way, he gets to romance Margaret Leighton and make friends with Jack Hawkins. I'll gladly sit through anything and everything with David Niven, but it's not really a subject matter that would normally hold my interest. Unless you really love that particular struggle of Great Britain and Scotland, you might be bored. One sad tidbit about the movie: it was a pet project of Leslie Howard, who planned to star in the movie after the war. His pal Niv took the mantle up for him.

This movie is excellent - I've been looking for a copy for ages but do not know where to purchase it from. Can you help! I am very interested in Scottish History and find this movie contains all the ingredients I enjoy in a movie. Prince Charles of Scotland was the rightful heir to the throne of England but was duped out of the throne by his English relatives. He was a descendant of James VI of Scotland and I of England which gave him title to the throne of England. That is why he attempted to get the throne back by force. He nearly succeeded but his Army was too small and the English loyalties were elsewhere. They didn't want a Scottish King sitting on the English throne. That would have been anti-English.

Unfortunately a number of technicolour productions made in Britain in the forties were great failures.In this case Niven was miscast and the script was a total bore.

Sick of the rule of the Hanoverian government that had arrived following the deposition of King James VII/II, the Scots people are all too keen to welcome his son - the "Bonnie Prince" himself (David Niven) as he calls for a gathering of the clans at Glenfinnan and declares that he is going to restore the house of Stuart to the throne. There are sceptics, but once he manages to secure the services of the acclaimed soldier "Murray" (Jack Hawkins) and the support of many of the chieftains the length and breadth of the land, they set off to remove the "redcoats" from not just Scotland but from the whole kingdom. Initially this all goes surprisingly well as the population quite fancy the idea of a change, but as they push farther south and then face the superiority of the Duke of Cumberland (Elwyn Brook-Jones) and his thirty thousand soldiers, the wheels start to come off! It's a gentle and romanticised view of British history from a turbulent and violent period of the 18th century, and historians and purists will probably loath it, but as an exercise in Hollywood mythology it allows Niven to exude some cheeky charisma as a character who undoubtedly had a considerable amount of personality whilst Margaret Leighton puts on her best accent as the infamous Flora MacDonald and an whole host of Scottish regulars from John Laurie to Finlay Currie to James Hayter help give it a certain tartan heather feel to it. It's a bit long, but there's enough action to keep the romantic elements in check and if you just sit back and enjoy it for what it is, then there are worse ways to spend 2¼ hours.