A swashbuckler, set in the eighteenth century:Russia is seeking to overthrow Swedish King Gustav III, and has itsenvoy and a Swedish traitor tamper with the royal hunting rifle in hopesof a fatal accident. A little wartime escapism from Sjöberg? or,more to the point, another veiled attack on totalitarianism:"Sjöberg, like Marcel Carné (Children of Paradise) inoccupied France, resolved to comment on the disturbing issues of thepresent through the device of setting his art in the past. LikeCarné, too, he brought to the cinema the intelligent lighting andflamboyant performances of the theater. The Royal Hunt paints a vivid(picture) of eighteenth-century life (and) provides further evidence ofSjöberg's graceful, felicitous gift for directing exteriors. The'hunt' itself (is) a Watteau canvas come to life°" (Peter Cowie)