Friday, June 15, 2012

Movie review - "Lady Godiva of Coventry" (1955) **1/2

Oscar Brodney isn't one of the best known screenwriters out there but in his own way he was quite influential for drawing attention to so many periods of history during his time under contract to Universal. He must have had a set of encyclopaedias in his office or something because a lot of his costume pictures make some attempt at factual basis - this, Sign of the Pagan, Little Egypt.

This was no doubt made to feature the charms of Maureen O'Hara who plays the title role but the actual star is George Nader, who was Universal's back up to Rock Hudson and Jeff Chandler. He's a Saxon noble in the time immediately prior to the Norman invasion, although there's already Saxon-Norman conflict, and the king wants him to marry a Norman but he wants to marry a Saxon so he hooks up with  Godiva, and he's a rebel only he's not and.... any way it all gets a bit complicated. There's three wacky old guys Nader winds up in gaol with (one played by Victor McLaglen), O'Hara uses a lot of passive aggression to get her way, some ambushes and tax collecting... and eventually Godiva goes for her ride, in a disappointingly obvious body stocking. (Although O'Hara does get props for her long hair which is gorgeous - and annoyingly held up for most of the film).

It's a bit silly, Nader isn't much of a lead but he's okay (the film would have been better off had O'Hara carried more of the action), there's good colour and production value, plenty is happening, at least it's a bit different. Oh and Clint Eastwood has one line and you can see who he is.

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