reminds me of

At first I thought of Edward VIII (ascended the throne in 1936) who was very negative toward pomp and circumstance and abdicated but I think it was a lot more like George VI and his wife Elizabeth. George VI did his duty when his brother did not, although he hated it, was unsuited to it, and his wife believed the stress killed him. I'm quite sure they both would have been very happy to retire from the job although they believed very strongly in the monarchy. Edward VIII and George VI looked a bit like Arliss.

It wasn't very long in the past when this movie was made that the future Queen Victoria's "wicked uncles" entered into a race to produce an heir, dumping their morganatic wives and children to do so. And it was in the fairly recent past that the king at that time, George V, married Mary, a woman who had been engaged to his brother who died and was persuaded to marry the new heir. She apparently came to love him. So the movie seems to have drawn on British royal history which would have been familiar to some in the audience.

The movie also drew on the republican feelings that were sweeping across Europe in that time. While one reviewer scoffed at the feelings expressed by the would be assassin, in fact in many countries there were very conflicted feelings held by the populace, with the result that monarchs could never be sure if once evicted from a throne they were done or would be called back or an heir would be called back. In that era this happened frequently. The public in many of the smaller countries were not actually anti-royalists but were pro-change. It was the US that was anti-royalist and supported the overthrow of monarchies, which unfortunately often led to a takeover by extreme elements of the left or right.

This isn't the history of Russia. This is the history of a country much like the UK with a weak monarch and a strong Parliament. The people would know that getting rid of, say, George V would be more of a gesture of unhappiness than a revolution because they would still be dealing with the politicians who had voted in such misery. And in the 30s and 40s in the UK, even those who thought the royals were a waste of money still had not reached the peak of cynicism we see today. One reason for that was the bonding that took place during WWI when the royal family kept morale up as they would in WWII. The people genuinely loved them, even if they thought the system should be changed. It's hard to fathom that today and yet it was that way then. One might conclude that in the fictional little country in the movie, homegrown revolutionaries might not have the ruthless edge of professional, international revolutionaries and might botch the job, might be bowled over by the king's kindness and willingness to avoid the wholesale bloodshed of his ancestors, and might realize how much they loved the royals even while they were grateful the royals were making it easy for them to take over. I'd be willing to cheer them myself if they were that generous to my cause!

If you think royals never quietly walked away like that, you don't know European history. :) In fact, in some countries for a while it was more or less a revolving door! lol One royal even insisted he wasn't coming back until there was a vote in his favor! Another found out he was made king in some other country when he read the newspaper his lunch was wrapped in. It was a different world then.