The Masquerader [1933] [DVD]

Suave Ronald Colman essays a dual role in a virtual rehearsal for The Prisoner of Zenda four years later. Here he plays a drug-addicted MP who hires his cousin to impersonate him and make a major speech in parliament. Of course, this has a knock-on effect on his love life (can the lovely Elissa Landi tell them apart?) and his conniving butler (brilliant Halliwell Hobbes). Intelligent stuff, though a little creaky nowadays; if it seems a tad familiar, that's because it's based on a novel that had previous incarnations as a successful stage play and as a silent movie in 1922.

Drama starring Ronald Colman. Journalist John Loder offers to take the place of politician Sir John Chilcote, his identical cousin, when Sir John's life begins to fall apart because of his drug addiction.