PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER. 20th Century Fox, 1935. Victor McLaglen, Freddie Bartholomew, Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen, C. Henry Gordon Based on the story “Gentlemen, the King,” by Damon Runyon. Directed by Tay Garnett.

   Well done mix of adventure, sentiment, and comedy finds ex-Marine Colonel Michael Donovan (Victor McLaglen) at the nadir of his career as a soldier of fortune around the world, from Siam to Nicaragua, playing bodyguard to American playboy George Foster (Michael Whalen) in Paris. After rescuing Foster from his own profligate ways in a comic Paris night club brawl, Donovan dumps the unconscious playboy at their hotel room, where two men show up with a proposition.

   It seems one of those comic opera kingdoms so popular in the era in the Ruritania/Graustark mode need Donovan to kidnap their popular king so they can carry off their revolution (“We are not Bolsheviks or National Socialists…”) and then return the king to his throne once the crooks who have control of the country are gone. Donovan is a little disappointed he won’t be leading the army in the revolution, or at least assassinating the king, but the money offered is $50,000 and even covers hospitalization.

   So we are off to the comic opera land of castles and intrigue where Donovan and Foster kidnap the monarch only to discover his majesty King Peter II is a child (Freddie Bartholomew). Forced to also kidnap Countess Sonia (Gloria Stuart), who Foster flirted with at a costume ball they attended to get the lay of the land, they successfully make off with the King while Gino (C. Henry Gordon), leader of the military junta that holds power, desperately seeks them.

   As you might guess from Damon Runyon’s name in the credits Donovan and Foster were originally a pair of Chicago gangsters in the story, and the screenplay refers to that with King Peter initially thinks they are just that, and that Donovan might be Dillinger. Peter is absolutely thrilled at the idea of being kidnapped and having an adventure rather than the dull old life of a king, even a young one.

   This would make an interesting double feature with My Pal The King, in which cowboy Tom Mix and his traveling Wild West show help King Mickey Rooney stay in power in yet another Ruriatanian setting.

   There are no surprises here. Donovan is crazy about the kid who proves game (he calls the boy “Campaigner” and the boy calls him “Soldier”) and Foster and Countess Sonia fall in love. The bloodless revolution succeeds, and everything seems to be going fine until a camp of Romany peoples camped near the place they are hiding Peter inform Gino of their whereabouts, and in short order McLaglen and Foster are captured, imprisoned and ordered to be executed despite the King proclaiming they are to be freed.

   Before being captured Donovan and Peter make a cross country escape trying to reach the palace and the leaders of the Revolution.

   It seems the King recognizes that the revolution was right and should be in power and plans to support it, and Gino can’t have that so he plans to execute the King by firing squad and blame the two Americans for his death.

   Luckily Sonia learns of the plan in time to free Donovan, but can he take on two hundred and fifty armed men with just Foster’s help until help can arrive?

   Well, maybe, because all along he has been telling some pretty tall tales about doing something just like that wielding an 88 pound Maxim machine gun in his arms (“You have to understand Irish-Americans can do some pretty uncanny things when they’re riled…”), and while no one quite believes him, including Peter, it’s the only chance King Peter has.

   Fast-paced and running under eighty minutes the film is handsomely decked out with costume balls, castles, and chalets in the mountains, while Tay Garnett keeps a tight hand on the reigns and McLaglen, the screenplay by Gene Fowler is snappy and finds a nice balance between the disparate elements of action, comedy, and sentiment, and McLaglen and Bartholomew have real chemistry together. Whether that was real or forced it works and is enough that the scenes between them are funny and charming rather than grating and annoying, and that is the difference between a film like this working or not.

   It plays like Adventure, Argosy, Blue Book, and Popular (one half expects Hope’s Rudolf Rassendayl, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barney Custer, and Joseph Louis Vance’s Terence O’Rourke to show up).

   Granted it also has about as much logic and realism as those too, but it makes up for that by never pretending for a minute to be anything than a rousing story well told, a tall tale for grown-ups.

   Tears are kept to a minimum and while there are a few misty eyes before the ending, they are appropriate to the rousing finale which ends as all good Ruritanian romances should. amid trumpets, fanfare, and in this case the Marine Hymn.