King Without a Crown, The (1937)
*** (out of 4)
Another nice entry in MGM's "Historical Mysteries" series with Carey Wilson doing the narration and Tourneur behind the camera. This time out we hear the mystery surrounding the true identity of a preacher from Wisconsin who claimed to have been the lost Dauphin and perhaps should have been the King of France. The story goes back to Louis XVI and whether or not he died as a child or was snuck out of the prison he was in, taken to America and left there until he could go back to France and claim his crown. This series is one of my favorites and this here is yet another example of why the conspiracy theorist in me loves it so much. I hadn't really heard of the mystery here so I found the entire set up to be a rather interesting one. At the same time, I can't comment on how true the story was or where the truth actually lied. I will say that this short does a nice job at giving out the "evidence" surrounding this story and director Tourneur does a good job at bringing it to life. He made another film in this series, THE MAN IN THE BARN, about John Wilkes Booth, which is a lot better and certainly worth searching out but this too is good.