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If I Were King is a delightful costume adventure
tale set in 14th century France, during the reign
of Louis XI, and inspired by the legend of the
rebel poet François Villon, whose exploits were
filmed earlier as The Beloved Rogue (1927) with
John Barrymore, and later transformed into the
musical The Vagabond King on Broadway and
onscreen. The movie opens with Paris
surrounded by the forces of the Duke of
Burgundy, whose armies have laid siege to the
city in hopes of starving out King Louis XI (Basil
Rathbone, in a riveting performance), a wily, cruel
monarch who distrusts all around him -- mostly,
however, Burgundy has succeeded in forcing
Louis to hunker down and in starving the common
people of Paris, whose well-being their king can't
be bothered about. The one man in Paris with the courage to raise a hand to ease the suffering is François Villon
(Ronald Colman), a gifted poet and glib orator
who understands the common people far better
than Louis. We first meet him leading a raid on
the king's storehouse for sorely needed food and
wine. Pursued by the king's guards, he
accidentally crosses paths with Louis himself --
trying to uncover a nest of traitors -- at a tavern,
and is captured. Louis would normally have Villon
put to death without a second thought, but the
rebel poet has done him the service of killing a
treasonous officer, and has also piqued the king's
interest with his notion of inspiring loyalty rather
than fear in his subjects. The king also wishes to
show Villon that it isn't always easy, even with all
of the power of the crown on one's side, to rule a
kingdom, or even the capitol city of a kingdom.
Louis appoints Villon to the post of Constable of
France, in command of all military and police
authorities, and nominally in charge of the army,
and leaves it to him to do his job -- with the
provision that, at the end of a week in so powerful
a position, Villon will, indeed, hang. Villon does a
very good job of dispensing justice in a way that
makes his followers love the king, and even turns
one traitor into a loyalist. He is less successful at
getting the titled nobility on his side, or the
generals to rally their armies for the task at hand,
breaking the siege, and is further distracted from
his task by his romantic entanglements, with Ellen
Drew as the girl of the streets who loves Villon
and Frances Dee as the lady-in-waiting to the
queen who has stolen his heart. |
