'His Royal Slyness' at 100 years

His Royal Slyness (1920)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Gaylord Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Harry Pollard, Marie Mosquini, Noah Young, Gus Leonard, and Helen Gilmore
Director: Hal Roach
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A door-to-door salesman (Harold Lloyd) with an uncanny resemblance to the crown prince of a small European nation (Gaylord Lloyd) is convinced to take his place after the prince decides he'd rather stay in America with his sexy girlfriend (Mosquini) than return home for an arranged marriage with the princess of a neighboring kingdom (Davis).

"His Royal Slyness" is a fun twist on the old "Prince and the Pauper"-type tale, as well as a spoof of the Communist revolution. It's a supremely silly film without a single straight-man in sight. Just about every character is goofy, horny, dimwitted, or some combination of the those. The only character who has the slightest bit of class and integrity in the film is the princess played by Mildred Davis... and that might just be because there wasn't time for her to reveal another side to her.

The film is in many ways a caricature of the peasant/worker revolution that was unfolding in Russia when it was made, with its cartoonish nobles and peasants, but it's also a great vehicle for Lloyd's standard womanizing character. One of the film's funniest running gags involves him taking down phone numbers in his Little Black Book for every woman he meets, including that of the austere queen to whose daughter he is to be married. (On a perhaps purely personal level, borne from my years developing fictional settings for roleplaying games, I was fascinated by the fact that the royal court of Thermosa exclusively employed young women instead of boys as pages. I found myself wondering what the greater society in that nation might be like as a result. Of course, the real reason for why producer/director Hal Roach made this choice was to have plenty of women in short skirts wandering around the scenes... but I still wonder what went on in Thermosa to make it so different from the norm.)

As I post these comments, it's exactly 100 years since "His Royal Slyness" was first seen by audiences in movie theatrers. Considering that, it's obvious to wonder if it's still worth seeing today... and my answer is an emphatic YES! The humor in this fast-paced comedy has held up extremely well, and the political undertones may resonate a little differently than they did in 1920, but they still feel fresh and relevant--which may be a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the 21st Century.

But don't just take my word for it! You can watch the movie below, embedded here in this very post, and make up your own mind.