Enjoyable, colourful swashbuckler utterly lacking in pretension. How could it be pretentious, really, with Tony Curtis as an English peasant during the reign of Henry IV who perhaps has famous ancestry; he and his sister go to stay with a noble house where Curtis is to train. Sure, Curtis had a 50s haircut and that Bronx accent, but he moves with an athlete’s grace and he’s likeable; his character has a few surly bitter moments, which fits in with his 50s juvenile delinquent persona. Janet Leigh adds prettiness and spirit as his love interest and Barbara Rush is also good looking as his sister (heroes in swashbuckler films rarely seem to have sisters, so that gives it novelty). The support cast has some class, including Dan O’Herlihy, Herbert Marshall and David Farrar.
The first two thirds of the movie is like a basic training army movie – Curtis learns knight stuff, romances Leigh, has a gruff sergeant with a heart of gold, wonders why the local lord ignores him. Then the last third they pull out all this plot and have a villain and it all turns out to be a scheme by Marshall – it might have been better to introduce it earlier. Also they don’t use the character of the sister at all – you keep expecting her to be killed or turn evil but nope she just hangs out with Leigh and has a romance with some bland male second lead.
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