THE EMPEROR'S CANDLSTICKS (1937)

Hoping to save a Patriot from execution, Polish Baron William Powell sneaks into Russia with a letter for the Tsar cleverly hidden in an ornate silver candlestick, one of a pair, unaware that its match, being brought to the secret police by Countess Luise Rainer, hides a letter denouncing him as a spy. Naturally, the candlesticks get mixed-up; there’s a candlestick robbery; an international candlestick treasure hunt; a candlestick auction; and finally a couple of candlestick-carrying spies falling in love. Pay no attention to the real countries mentioned, it’s the usual Ruritanian romantic nonsense popular at the time, with plotting & absurd coincidences even more idiotic than usual. Yet it might have worked if only someone had found (and held onto) a consistent tone, or had nimbler moves than director George Fitzmaurice. Rainer, coming off back-to-back Oscars® for THE GREAT ZIEGFELD/’36 and THE GOOD EARTH/’37, seems relieved to play something light & sentimental, though she still tends to moon more than necessary. Powell, hampered by a remarkably bad dye job (was M-G-M using black shoe polish that year?), is his usual impeccable self (watch him play a scene where Rainer finds him a bit too old for her), but can’t hold things together all on his own. And what a big cast on the sidelines: Robert Young, Maureen O’Sullivan, Frank Morgan, et al., plus enormous sets, balls & costumes . . . adding little. Chances are this one got rushed into production in an attempt to beat David O. Selznick’s Ruritanian remake THE PRISONER OF ZENDA/’37; story problems be damned. Hence, some alarmingly choppy edits where M-G-M would normally have done reshoots. For Rainer, a sign of things to come as her meteoric career came to a screeching halt only a year later. Thru at 28; she lived to see 104.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As mentioned above, this beat ZENDA’s September release by a couple of months but can’t hold a candle(stick) to Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll & Doug Fairbanks Jr.’s Gold Standard Ruritanian classic.