Vagabond poet François Villon rises to high office in 1463 Paris.Vagabond poet François Villon rises to high office in 1463 Paris.Vagabond poet François Villon rises to high office in 1463 Paris.
- Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 4 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- Justin Huntly McCarthy
- Lou Smith(uncredited)
- Preston Sturges
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRonald Colman was a frequent guest on Jack Benny's radio show, where he was supposedly Jack's next-door neighbor in Beverly Hills. A 1946 broadcast had Colman rehearsing his recital of the poem, "If I Were King," only to find himself being drowned out by Jack's violin playing from next door.
- GoofsThe idealized diet of a king includes hummingbirds, but those had not been discovered yet, as Columbus was still a few decades to come.
- Quotes
King Louis XI: If it is so easy to be king, how would you begin?
François Villon: First, by eating... my next step would be to clean house. The vermin who infest the palace I'd hang in clusters.
King Louis XI: What would you do next?
François Villon: Try to know my subjects and try to earn their devotion and loyalty instead of their loathing.
King Louis XI: By abolishing taxes, I suppose?
François Villon: No! By abolishing despair and substituting hope. By knowing the longings in their hearts as a man of the people would, seeing them as they are and admitting that their vices are as deep rooted as their virtues. I'd treat them as my children instead of as my enemies, so by knowing the worst in them, I'd bring out the best in them.
- Crazy creditsThe opening credits are displayed on the roofs and outside walls of houses.
- ConnectionsReferenced in So You Want to Be an Actor (1949)
As I first began watching this, my immediate reaction was, "What an obvious attempt to cash in on The Hunchback of Notre Dame!", the film whose look and feel most closely resemble this one. But my chronology was backwards. The Laughton Hunchback is 1939. If you have ever seen the Chaney Hunchback from 1923, you may have been struck by how different many of the characterizations are from the more familiar version, especially that of the King. The 1923 French King is a nasty piece of work, just the sort of thinly disguised Napoleon III that Victor Hugo would conceive of. So where did the doddering but dear-hearted 1939 King played by sweet old Harry Davenport come from then? Well, that's easy. From Basil Rathbone's King in this film. They even look the same!
Rathbone, by the way, is completely unrecognizable. If he's played an impish character elsewhere, I've never seen it. He gets most of Preston Sturges's best and most typical lines of dialogue.
Sturges is the reason I was watching the film in the first place. Telltale signs are everywhere in the script, but we definitely do not get effervescent dialogue issuing forth from every mouth the way we expect from the later, classic Sturges films.
I am not a great fan of Ronald Colman ordinarily but he brings a lot of spirit to his part, even if he doesn't have quite the dash of an Errol Flynn. But he does have a lot to do with this film's overall success.
Frances Dee demonstrates once again that she is quite probably the best-looking American actress of the 1930's, although she has all the acting prowess of an Andie MacDowell. (If you insist on talent with your set decoration, then you probably would have preferred to see Paulette Goddard playing the part of the lady-in-waiting who catches Villon's eye.)
- Varlaam
- Nov 19, 1998
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Details
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1