The King's Thief

Edmund Purdom plays "Michael Dermott" a petty crook and the hero in this tale of a 17th Century plot by the evil, ambitious "Duke of Brampton" (David Niven) to amass a fortune by denouncing as many wealthy nobles as he can before he can depose the weak Charles II (George Sanders) and rule Britain. Ann Blyth is the daughter of one such man who was hung for treason. She enlists the help of Purdom and they set out to foil these dastardly plans with the aid of the Duke's self-incriminating little black book. It's a fine looking film, and Niven and Sanders put some class into it. Otherwise, though, the leads are quite feeble as is the script.

How bad is this thing? Well, let's just say Robert Z Leonard was brought in to rescue it. Just think about that for a second. I mean, to paraphrase George Clooney in "Michael Clayton", Robert Z Leonard isn't the guy you bring in to RESCUE a piece of crap. He's the friggin guy you FIRE so you can bring in a guy (like Vince Minnelli on "The Bribe") to rescue a piece of crap. Also, it's most disconcerting to see David Niven in a moustache twirling villain part. He's such a good actor that he's ok but it speaks volumes about how his career was languishing at this mid 50s point, before Hecht Hill Lancaster rescued him and it in "Separate Tables", that he was consigned to parts that Christopher Lee would have spat upon. C minus.

PS...A previous reviewer wrote that this is his favorite Robert Z Leonard film. That's like saying Chad is your favorite poverty stricken nation.

Glorious CinemaScope. Some BIG BIG names, in their early days. Roger Moore, waaaay before he was James Bond. Ann Blyth. George Sanders... who could be hit or miss in his movies. David Niven in another prim and proper English role. Of course, Niven had ALSO played Bond in Casino Royale! Period piece from England, on Charles II, who actually lived from 1630 to 1685. History says he died of kidney illness, which may or may not have been brought on by poison. In our story, Dermott is played by Edmund Purdom; fun bio on IMDb.... Purdom has the distinction of being the only actor to have his hand-prints removed from the sidewalk at G's Chinese Theater. Swordfights. Chases on horseback. Brampton (Niven) is the evil dude, having his opponents knocked off with false accusations. The usual palace adventures. Its okay. Fun to see some of those big names from back in the day, but the acting is all pretty stilted, as if they are reading off cue cards. Directed by Robert Leonard... one of his last films.

I am a retired American who taught world history. Although Charles II is shown as an all-around swell guy beset with disloyal jerks waiting to kill him, he was, in fact, a divine right king who managed to eventually lose much of the good will the English had towards him when the monarchy was restored. The English were dreadfully sorry they chopped off the head of Charles I and were ready to make amends. Charles, however, wasn't about to learn the lesson of his father-- and continued to behave as if he was never to be challenged in his role as king. Things really were bad...so bad that when his brother, James II, took the thrown the English soon chased him out of the country and replaced the Stuarts with a Dutch king and queen. So, as I watched the film, I had to laugh because it did re-write history just a tad! But enough of a mini lecture...on to the film itself.

The film is about yet another plot to kill the king by a disloyal bunch of jerks. However, there is a small book with this information in it--and it's stolen by a group of highway men! Are these crooks evil crooks or the Hollywood type who are intensely loyal Englishman who love their king? Through the course of this film you'll learn!

So although it might not be all that accurate, is this an enjoyable film? No. Not really. Like too many period films, the dialog is stilted and the picture lacks humanity and realism. It looks like a stagy production and sounds like one too. Watchable but hardly a must-see.

I watched The King's Thief for one reason only, and that was that I am a bit of a Roger Moore fan. Alas, Roger isn't in the film very much, though what little he does he does well enough. However, I still enjoyed it as an easy-on-the-brain swashbuckler, the type of thing that Errol Flynn might have starred in twenty years earlier.

The plot is brisk and simple. It involves a plot to overthrow the king of England, recorded in a notebook which falls into the hands of a woodland bandit. The bandit is a bad man, but when he realises what is going on, he knows that he must do something to protect the monarch. In this way, the villain actually becomes the good guy. After a lot of swordplay and treachery, the bandit and his merry men save the king and catch the deceivers.

There's not much to remember about the film once it's over. There's one particularly suspenseful escape sequence, in which two bandits get out of Newgate prison, but besides that it kind of floats out of your head as quickly as it floated in. All the same, this is fun. It is the kind of movie your kids could watch without being exposed to blood and gore, sex and swearing. Yet at the same time it deals with action, murder, treachery and brigandry. I can't honestly recommend the film as a great viewing experience (it certainly isn't some kind of forgotten classic, so don't think it is), but if you want to pass an hour and a half on a Saturday afternoon, you could do a lot worse.