THE DUKE WORE JEANS

Tony Whitecliffe's parents hope that he will marry Princess Maria of Ritalla, thus restoring the family fortunes. Tony already secretly married, encounters his double, Tommy Hudson, a vagrant Cockney, and sends him to Ritalla in his place. Maria is hostile to the proposed marriage and is supported by two court plotters, Bastini and Bartolomeo, who want a republic. When she meets Tommy, however they fall in love. When the plotters discover Tommy's real identity, he produces his parents, dressed as a Pearly King and Queen. The court concedes that Tommy is a prince in his own right, and he and Maria are married.

"Tommy Steele has a large, warm personality and an endearing ease in the midst of this absurd moderndress Ruritanian pantomime. He still has a tendency towards coyness or archness a fault also of the young Ray Bolger whom he often resembles but one suspects that he will outlast the rock'n'roll era which fostered him. His departures from rock'n'roll in the present film prove, in fact, his best numbers." ("Monthly Film Bulletin", n. 292, May 1958, p. 61)

Director: Gerald Thomas.
Plot: Lionel Bart, Michael Pratt.
Screenplay: Norman Hudis.
Director of photography: Otto Heller.
Editor: Peter Boita.
Art director: Harry White.
Music: Lionel Bart, Michael Pratt.
Sound: C. Collick.
Coreografia: Pauline Grant.
Cast: Tommy Steele (Tony e Tommy), June Laverick (Maria), Michael Medwin (Cooper), Eric Pohlmann (Bastini), Alan Wheatley (King), Mary Kerridge (Queen), Ambrosine Phillpotts (la duchessa), Clive Morton (il duca), Noel Hood (lady Marguerita), Elwyn BrookJones (Bartolomeo).
Production company: Peter Rogers per la Anglo Annalgamated.