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The Duke Wore Jeans

1958 film by Gerald Thomas

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ7731177 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Duke Wore Jeans is a 1958 British comedy musical film directed by Gerald Thomas and starring Tommy Steele, June Laverick and Michael Medwin. The screenplay was by Norman Hudis who also wrote Steele's first film The Tommy Steele Story.

Plot

The only son of the poor but aristocratic Whitecliffe family is to be sent to the nation of Ritalla in order to sell the family's cattle to upgrade the nation's livestock. As a side benefit, his parents hope he will marry the King's only daughter, Princess Maria. Unknown to his family, Tony is already secretly married to a commoner. Fate intervenes when drifter Tommy Hudson, who is the identical likeness of Tony, comes to the Whitecliffe estate to seek work. Tony engages Tommy to impersonate him on his trip to Ritalla accompanied by Cooper, the family's only servant.

Tommy and Cooper travel to Ritalla where Tommy pretends to be Tony. The princess refuses to meet him because she does not want to get married. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Bastini is scheming to force the King to abdicate since his daughter refuses to marry.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Duke Wore Jeans” is 1958 film by Gerald Thomas. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Duke, Wore and Jeans, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1958—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1958-01-01. For this dossier, Duke, Wore and Jeans is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1958 film by Gerald Thomas” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7731177. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Duke Wore Jeans”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Duke Wore Jeans primary sources, The Duke Wore Jeans archive and Duke research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Duke Wore Jeans”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Duke Wore Jeans” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.