The Vagabond King (1930) Review: Loud, Weird, and Fun

If you have a soft spot for guys in tights shouting their feelings at the top of their lungs, you should probably watch this today. It is a total trip into how movies used to look when they were still trying to figure out how microphones worked.

But if you hate stagey acting where every gesture looks like it’s being performed for the person in the very last row of a theater, you will probably want to turn this off after five minutes. It is not subtle. At all. 🏰

I went into this one mostly curious about Dennis King. I’d seen the silent version, The Beloved Rogue, and that one has John Barrymore being all moody and cool. This? This is different.

Dennis King plays Francois Villon like a man who has had about eight cups of coffee right before the director yelled action. He doesn't just talk; he proclaims. Every line is a speech. Every song is a challenge to the heavens.

The story is basically a big "what if" scenario. The King of France (played by O.P. Heggie with a very weird, twitchy energy) gets annoyed by Villon’s poetry. So he decides to make Villon the Grand Marshal for a day to see if the poet can actually do anything besides talk trash.

It’s a bit of a silly premise, but the movie commits to it so hard that you kind of just go along with it. There’s this one scene in a tavern where everyone is drinking out of these giant metal cups that look heavy as lead. You can tell the extras are just waiting for their cue to start cheering.

Speaking of extras, the crowd scenes are kind of hilarious. They all move in unison like a flock of birds. When Villon starts singing the "Song of the Vagabonds," they all just sort of materialize and start marching. It’s very theatrical.

Jeanette MacDonald is in this too. She’s Katherine. She looks like she belongs in a completely different, much more elegant movie. Her voice is actually really nice, but sometimes she looks a little confused by how much Dennis King is yelling in her face. 🎤

The Visuals and the Vibes

The movie was originally in Technicolor, but most of the versions you find now are in black and white. You can still tell it was meant to be flashy. The costumes have so many feathers and layers. I kept wondering how hot it must have been under those big studio lights with all that velvet on.

There is a weird moment where the King is spying on people from behind a curtain. He looks so small and shriveled. It’s actually one of the better bits of acting in the whole thing because he doesn't feel like a cartoon like everyone else does.

I noticed that the camera barely moves. It just sits there, watching the actors walk into the frame and then walk out. It’s like watching a filmed play from the best seat in the house. This makes the pacing feel a bit slow in the middle bits.

• The Burgundian army looks like they just borrowed costumes from the local high school.
• The poet’s friends are all very dirty, but their teeth are surprisingly white.
• There is a lot of rhyming. Maybe too much rhyming.

I’ve been trying to watch more from this era, like East Lynne or even the weirdly titled Who Hit Me?, and *The Vagabond King* stands out because it’s just so loud. It doesn't have the quiet charm of something like Enticement.

One scene that stuck with me was the big battle at the end. It doesn't really feel like a battle. It feels like a very organized parade where people occasionally poke each other with sticks. But the music is catchy, I’ll give it that. I found myself humming the main tune while doing the dishes later.

"If I were king for a day!"

That line gets repeated a lot. Like, a lot. By the end, you’re ready for him to just be king already so he can stop talking about it. But there is a certain charm to how much they believed in this stuff back then. There’s no irony. No one is winking at the camera. They really think this is epic drama.

It reminds me of The Americano in how it tries to balance adventure with a very specific kind of hero. But Villon isn't really a hero. He’s a guy who got lucky because the King was bored. 🤷‍♂️

The romance between Villon and Katherine feels very rushed. One minute he’s a criminal, the next she’s looking at him like he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. I guess that’s just how movies worked in 1930. You didn't need a three-act structure for a crush; you just needed a high-pitched song.

The ending is exactly what you think it is. No surprises there. But the way they get there is so over-the-top that it’s hard to be mad at it. It’s like eating a giant piece of cake that’s mostly frosting. It’s too much, but you finish it anyway.

I think I liked it more than Betty Sets the Pace, but maybe less than The Kid Is Clever. It’s a specific mood. You have to be in the mood for some operetta madness.

If you're looking for something that feels "real," go watch something else. This is a movie about people in fancy hats singing about their feelings while a kingdom hangs in the balance. It’s kind of dumb, but it’s honest about being dumb. And sometimes that's enough for a Tuesday night. 🏰✨

Final thought: Dennis King’s hair is a work of art. I don't know how they kept it so perfect during a revolution. It realy is the most stable thing in the whole movie.