Anthony Hope followed up The Prisoner of Zenda with Rupert of Hentzau, serialized beginning December 1897 (The Pall Mall Magazine) and appearing in book form the following year, when Hope himself adapted it for the stage, first in the U.S. for Daniel Frohman, starring James K. Hackett (opening 21.11.1898), and then in the UK (05.10.1899), with George Alexander again playing the double role of Rassendyll and the King. The London Film Company produced the earliest film version, which premiered in March 1915 just two weeks after the same company’s The Prisoner of Zenda, both directed by George Loane Tucker and starring Henry Ainley. Curiously none of the U.S. studios optioned an adaptation of Rupert until Selznick Pictures’ 1923 version directed by Victor Heerman starring Bert Lytell; sadly all three films are believed lost.
Thanks to Hope’s novels, the names of Rudolph and Rupert became firmly associated with Ruritanian stories, so it’s not surprising that Sir William Magnay, author of The Red Chancellor (the basis for Den sorte Kansler in our programme), named one of his mythical principality novels Ruperta, declaring by name alone what the subject would be (it was serialized under that title beginning in July 1904, but when published in book form the following year became A Prince of Lovers). Clearly the genre called for parodies, such as Robert W. Chambers’ A King and a Few Dukes (1896), in which an American weds the Princess, though in the end it’s the American who blunders everything and the mythical kingdom’s royals who set things right. Thirty years later Noël Coward poked fun at the craze with The Queen Was in the Parlour (1926), which references several of Hope’s characters, including Rupert.
Films could easily parody the topic because audiences were assumed to be overly-familiar with the theme. Ted Okuda and James L. Neibaur, in their Stan Without Ollie. The Stan Laurel Solo Films, 1917-1927 (2012) recognize this when they discuss Rupert of Hee Haw, released one year after the 1923 Rupert of Hentzau: while the authors complain about the short’s incomprehensible narrative, they admit “its target audience was no doubt familiar with the original plot and characters that are now being called into question.” Rupert of Hee Haw barely follows the Hope novel, though it does have Laurel playing both the alcoholic King and his look-alike Rudolph Razz. In this comic iteration, Princess Minnie sends a compromising letter to her lover Rudolph, but it’s intercepted and he has to get it back from Rupert. The film engages in more anarchic slapstick than either His Royal Slyness or Long Fliv the King, and was accurately reviewed in Moving Picture World (07.06.1924): “This film certainly pokes a lot of good-natured fun at the highly romantic type of swashbuckling costume drama and should duplicate the record of the previous Laurel burlesques, as there are a number of amusing sub-titles and situations.”
Don’t fail to register the fleeting appearance of Lady T. Pott Dome, played by Irene Lentz, who would find far greater fame as the costume designer Irene.

Amy Sargeant, Jay Weissberg