Many impressive elements came together in this action/adventure from 1977. Its literary root was Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper (the movie’s original title in its UK release). It got its swashbuckling sweep from the tradition of movies like The Three Musketeers. And its ran the popular culture gamut, from American proto-supermodels (Raquel Welch) to top-tier British actors (Rex Harrison and Oliver Reed) and a whole lot in between – Ernest Borgnine and George C. Scott, to name just two.

Mark Lester plays both Tom Canty, a good-natured, pugnacious commoner, and the young Prince of Wales. Meeting by chance, the two take note of their identical looks and decide to put one over on the court by switching dress and persona and taking a turn each in the other’s shoes, literally. Unfortunately for the lads, they are separated before they have a chance to explain the joke, and the ruse goes on much longer than it was supposed to.

While the prince is immersed in Tom’s gritty working-class world, Tom discovers that the royal “good life” isn’t all footmen and merriment. Corruption and treachery live amongst the noble aristocracy, and even King Henry VIII (Charlton Heston) – he of the wives and the beheadings – is no exemplar of rectitude.