features a monarch of a fictional Central European state who plots a coup against himself and then flees to Venice in order to experience the life of an ordinary person. Similarly, Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York (1957) starts with King Igor Shahdov being overthrown by a revolution in his Eastern European country Estrovia and coming to live in exile in New York. In the satire The Mouse That Roared (1955), the Duchy of Grand Fenwick attempts to avoid bankruptcy by declaring war on the United States as a ploy for gaining American aid. In Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962), the main narrator has the delusion of being the incognito king of a "distant northern land" who romantically escaped a Soviet-backed revolution. In the comic film The Great Race (1965), rally driver Professor Fate (played by Jack Lemmon) is the double of the Crown Prince of the tiny kingdom of Carpania. The popularity of the genre declined after the first part of the twentieth century. Aside from the change in literary taste, the royalist elements of Ruritanian romances became less plausible as many European monarchies receded even from memory, and their restorations grew less likely. Many elements of the genre have been transplanted into fantasy worlds, particularly those of fantasy of manners and alternate history. The science fiction writer Andre Norton first reached success with a 1934 Ruritanian novel, The Prince Commands. Although "Ruritania" originally referred to a contemporary country, the idea has been adapted for use in historical fiction. A subgenre of this is historical romance, such as Jennifer Blake's Royal Seduction and its sequel Royal Passion; both are set in the nineteenth century and feature Prince Rolfe (later King) and his son Prince Roderic respectively, of the fictional Balkan country of Ruthenia. (Ruthenia is a genuine geographic name, identifying an area of eastern Europe somewhat to the north of the Balkan peninsula, in the Carpathian mountains, but is not an independent country.) Other Ruritanian settings in fiction Marvel Comics created the character Victor Von Doom, absolute monarch of Latveria in the Balkans, who combines recognizable elements of a Ruritanian monarch with being a formidable comics Supervillain. The Grand Budapest Hotel, a 2014 comedy film written and directed by Wes Anderson, is set in the fictional nation of Zubrowka, a central European alpine state teetering on the outbreak of war. The Peacher Series by Michael Arram is 16