The Royal Bed

The king of a small country plays checkers with his footman while the queen runs everything, and with the queen away in America a general plans a coup, the princess plans to elope with the king's secretary, and the king, for once, has to act. He does it by not appearing to. Lowell Sherman directs and stars, and his drawl and raised eyebrow carry a drawing-room comedy about power exercised by the least powerful man in the room. Mary Astor is the princess. From Robert E. Sherwood's The Queen's Husband, made in the year of the Depression and a good deal gentler than its subject. RKO, 1931.