For the George Arliss fans

I notice that Voltaire is on TCM tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. A search of the blog suggested I mentioned it once before, when it was part of a TCM Bastille Day line-up many years ago. I think I watched it more recently than that post, but it's still been at least a couple of years, so the movie isn't quite so fresh in my mind.

As you can probably guess from the title of the post, George Arliss plays Voltaire, the French writer from the reign of King Louis XV (Reginald Owen) who has views that were relatively radical for the time although I wouldn't be surprised if there are idiots somewhere who think he should be canceled. In this movie version, Voltaire has some support from the King's mistress, Madame de Pompadour (Doris Kenyon), she of the hairdo, but is opposed by the King's chief advisor, the Count de Sarnac (Alan Mowbray).

Voltaire writes some controversial stuff calling for one M. Calas to be spared the death penalty, but that doesn't happen, and part of the punishment is also to be dispossessed, which is a problem for Calas' daughter Nanette (Margaret Lindsay). She, looking for help, runs off to Voltaire, but for him to hide her in his house is legally problematic for both of them.

How to save himself? Well, Voltaire wrote a lot, so in this movie, he extricates himself from the situation by writing a new play which is an allegory for the situation he is in, with a King of some other country in a more exotic part of the world doing the things Louis did. It ought to be a fairly obvious reference, but this Voltaire, and of course George Arliss, are so darn charming that the King can't help but have sympathy for Voltaire.

The plot may be a bit frustrating at times and some might suggest that Arliss could be prone to mugging to the camera. I think I'd say that's a bit more true in the historical dramas like Voltaire, and less in the contemporary dramas, where Arliss is usually quite good, raising mediocre material to something worth watching. As with those, Arliss is the big reason to see Voltaire, as he really is that charming.

I don't think Voltaire has ever gotten a DVD release; it probably should have one one of those four-film box sets that TCM and Warner Home Video used to release. There are quite a few Arliss movies that would be better at the box-set price point.