George Arliss

Edward Arnold

Maureen O'Sullivan

Cesar Romero

Violet Kemble Cooper

Katharine Alexander

Halliwell Hobbes

Francis Lister

Lumsden Hare

Keith Hitchcock

Murray Kinnell

Herbert Bunston

Guy Bellis

Boyd Irwin

Leonard Mudie

David Clyde

Charles E. Evans

Reginald Sheffield

Eddie Dunn

William Worthington

Pat Somerset

Leo McCabe

Gilbert Emery

Holmes Herbert

Lionel Belmore

Wilson Benge

John Carradine

Tom Ricketts

Arthur Treacher

David Thursby

Reginald Barlow

Dexter McReynolds

Jack Carlyle

Jack Harvey

Perry Ivins

Raymond Lawrence

Jack Rutherford

Eric Wilton

Rowland V. Lee

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Cameron Rogers

Maude T. Howell

W.P. Lipscomb

Nunnally Johnson

Darryl F. Zanuck

Richard Day

Omar Kiam

Ben Silvey

Roger Heman Sr.

Vinton Vernon

J. Peverell Marley

Alfred Newman

William Forsyth

History

Romance

Drama

Cardinal Richelieu

20th Century Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

George Arliss is the eponymous red clergyman attempting to control 17th Century France. He is the first minister of the ineffectual Louis XIII and as such, is the object of pretty universal loathing from serfs and nobles alike. He is also, however, remarkably astute and thick-skinned, and will manoeuvre and scheme to advance the cause and safety of his nation. Sadly, though - even with all that to work with, neither director Rowland V. Lee, nor Arliss himself really deliver anything particularly exciting or intriguing. The plotting and counter-plotting is all just a bit shallow, the wordy dialogue neuters the characters quite effectively and the pace of the whole thing lurches rather than flows. It has grand set staging, but that seems to suggest it might make for a better play than a movie and although there are plenty of familiar faces propping him up - Cesar Romero, Edward Arnold and quite a jolly contribution from Maureen O'Sullivan, on the whole I was disappointed by this rather dry, procedural drama.

English