GREAT BRITAIN & LATIN AMERICA RELATIONS, PARTE SECONDA: THE DUKE WORE JEANS (1958) [Part 2 of 3]

 

DUKE WORE JEANS, The

1958, UK

 

Aka… The Duke Wore Jeans

Ex: Tommy Steele spiller op / ‘Tommy Steele Plays Around’ (Den), Herttua farmareissa / ‘The Farmer Duke’ (Fin), A herceg halásznadrágban / ‘The Prince Wears Fisherman's Pants” (Hun), Tommy Steele Spiller opp / ‘Tommy Steele Plays Around’ (Nor), Hertig i jeans / ‘Duke in Jeans’ (Swd)

T: 90m

Pc: Insignia Film Production (Lon)

Dist: Anglo Amalgamated Film Distributors Ltd [Nat Cohen & Stuart Levy] (03/20/58, UK), (03/31/58, Swd), (04/10/58, S. Africa (04/14/58, Den), UA-United Artists [?] (06/04/59, Can, Tor), (11/20/59, Fin), (12/30/62, Hung, TV), Studiocanal (07/19/10, UK, dvd), Network (01/20/20, UK, bluray)

D: Gerald Thomas; P: Peter Rogers; Sc: Norman Hudis; St: Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens]: The Prince and the Pauper (1881, Canada, and 1882, US); Ph: Otto Heller; Ed: Peter Boita; M: Ronald Shaw

C: Tommy Steele (Duke Tony Whitecliffe & Tommy Hudson), June Laverick (Princess Maria of Ritallia), Michael Medwin (Cooper), Alan Wheatley (King of Ritallia), Mary Kerridge (Queen of Ritallia), Eric Pohlmann (Prime Minister Bastini), Noel Hood [Margaret Noel Hood] (Lady Marguerite), Elwyn Brook-Jones (Bartolomeo), Clive Morton (Lord Edward Whitecliffe), Ambrosine Phillpotts (Duchess Cynthia Whitecliffe), Cyril Chamberlain (Barman), Martin Boddey (Doctor), Arnold Diamond (M.C.), Philip Leaver (Factory Manager), John Fabian, Susan Travers (Stewardess), Derek Waring (TV Newsreader), Jack Armstrong Paul Beradi, Patrick Halpin, George Holdcroft (Cabinet Members), Jerry Judge (Photographer), Pauline Chamberlain (Woman at Dance), Chris Adcock & Terry Sartain (Guests at Dance), Guy Standeven (Party Guest), Emile Stemmler (Reception Guest), Mabel Etherington (Engagement Party Guest), Martin Lyder (Man at Guitar Presentation) &John Fabian

Syn: 1950’s. UK and the Duchy of ‘Ritallia’, South America. An aristocrat who loves another, is caught up in an arranged marriage and gets a cockney drifter to woo a South American princess, in his place, so he can get out of the wedding.

 Comm: [Filmed at Shardeloes, Amersha\m, Buckinghamshire, England (18th century country home in South America plus exteriors) and British National Studios, Elstree, Hertfordshire, England, UK (Interiors) from Oct 28, 1957, to late 1957

     Like the later GUNS OF DARKNESS, THE DUKE WORE JEANS goes sans ‘Cowboy’ gear. Tommy Steele at least wears a suitably western ‘string bowtie’ and performs and dances to the c&w tune “Hair Down – Hoe Down”.  He visits the stables of the South American Palace Estate. Lending more country ambience to the proceedings.  Both films are about troubled fictional contemporary South American countries and were filmed elsewhere (Spain and UK, respectively). One wonders how close THE DUKE WORE JEANS’s Duchy of ‘Ritallia’ is to GUNS OF DARKNESS’s Republic of ‘Tribulación’, being that both are said to be in South America.

     Plot wise THE DUKE WORE JEANS’s use of having characters mistaken for each other was borrowed from Mark Twain’s ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ (Can, 1881, US, 1882) and later used in the comedies TORREJON CITY (11/62, Sp), TWINS OF TEXAS (10/64, It-Sp), EAST OF THE WEST (08/84, Sp) and several Zorro movies.

     Tommy Steele is regarded as Britain's first teen idol. This was his second motion picture following the bio musical “The Tommy Steele Story” (1957, UK), that THE DUKE WORE JEANS’s Norman Hudis had also scripted.

     And oh yes, the word ‘Duke’ in the title of THE DUKE WORE JEANS was supposed to conjure up the image of John Wayne, in at least the American audience’s mind.

     The aforementioned GUNFIGHT AT RIO GRANDE (1965, Ger) and THE MAGNIFICENT TWO, aka What Ever Happened at Campo Grande (1966, UK) were also set in fictional modern-day countries, where their cast members were decked out in Mexican sombreros and ammo bandanas.

     THE DUKE WORE JEANS was made by Peter Rogers & Gerald Thomas just ahead of the very first “Carry On” movie: “Carry on Sergeant” (08/58, UK).

     Anglo Amalgamated Film Distributors Ltd later released CARRY ON COWBOY and SHALAKO, two proper British westerns.

     The following year rival distributor Associated British-Pathé got Tommy Steele to remake THE DUKE WORE JEANS, set it in Spain, and called it “Tommy the Toreador” (1959, UK). There he is confused with a famous matador, rather than an English Aristocrat and double mayhem ensued again. 

By Michael Ferguson