Movie review - "The King's Thief" (1955) **

 The theft of the crown jewels by Thomas Blood has the material for a fun swashbuckler. This one shoehorns that episode at the end uneasily to a tale about a highwayman in Charles II era fighting to defend the Crown against villainous noble David Niven.

The movie is mostly notable for George Sanders playing Charles II - if he'd depicted the hero or villain the movie might've been fun. Niven is hilariously miscast as the baddy - I'm not sure he would've suited the hero part either but he would've been better than Edmund Purdom.

The movie has all the excitement and humour sucked out of it. Purdom is dull but he has no character to play other than "brave". His group of men lack any individuality or character - they include Roger Moore, but just try telling them apart. 

Dore Schary oversaw so many badly made  "commercial" films in the 1950s. This is so bland. Dull script, doesn't dramatise things like the death of Ann Blyth's dad. Blyth does little. Just rips off Robin Hood.

Nice production values - it's an "A" picture. That's about it. 

Movie review - "The Gambler from Natchez" (1954) ***

 Entertaining Southern about soldier-gambler Dale Robertson avenging the death of his dad. Good solid melodrama - his father was a gambler, he's helped by low class spit gire Debra Paget (similar to Cigarette from Under Two Flags ) and her dad Thomas Gomez (very fun) romances high class gal whose brother (Kevin McCarthy) is a cad. Slavery is almost entirely ignored though there are a few black characters. There's a duel at the end with swords and an earlier one with pistols.

Decent production values and novel setting - it does lack a really strong star. Dale Robertson isn't a Tyrone Power or Tony Curtis and the film needs it. 

Movie review - "The Fighting Guardsman" (1945) **1/2

 Willard Parker was a third tier leading man who Columbia had under contract for a while. this is a gift for an actor playing a Scarlet Pimpernel type - an aristocrat who robs nobles and gives to the poor This is the time of Louis XVI who appears. There's decent complications - Parker is in love with Anita Louise whose brother George Macready (excellent as always) is an aristocrat, Parker's men don't trust him because he's an aristocrat, ally Janis Carter (hugely fun) becomes a mistress of Louis.

Parker is dull and wooden. There's no difference between the characters. John Loder is a sympathetic Pom. He's also blank. Carter and the support are great; Louise is fine.

A strong story, solid Henry Levin direction. Just let down by its lead. 

Movie review - "The Gallant Blade" (1948) **1/2

 Tight Columbia swasbuckler with a neat idea - some French officers at the end of the 30 year war try to stop villainous Frenchy Victor Jory from trying to start up war again. George MacCready is a good generaal the hero is Larry Parks who feels very American. But its amicable and fun. Margureite Chapman has a meaty role as Jory's spy/mistress who falls for Parks - she's got something to play.

Some beautiful diction on display with Jory and Macready. Henry Levin keeps it fast. From a Dumas story. 

Movie review - "Yellowbeard" (1983) **

 I liked this as a kid. It hasn't aged that well. I don't think it's one of the worst films of all time. Graham Chapman can hold the screen. Eric Idle is very funny as is John Cleese - and Marty Feldman.

A few too many jokes about rape.  "Stagger stagger fall fall" is still funny. They didn't quite get the plot to work. It feels as though they were pushing and pulling. It's Treasure Island ish. Maybe should've been that.

Lot of screen time goes to Martin Hewitt whose relationship with dad Chapman is an effective emotional core.

Decent production values. Peter Boyle is not at home.

Movie review - "Excalibur" (1981) ****

 Silly but fun. Great integrity. Tremendous cast of future stars but it's Helen Mirren who steals the show. Great spookiness. They could've made Arthur and Percy look more different.

TV series - "The Buccaneers - Ep 1 Blackbeard" (1958) **1/2

 I watched this because it was on Tubi. Robert Shaw is credited as the star but he's not in it. The hero is Alec Cunes as Woodes Rogers, offering a pardon to pirates including Blackbeard. Ralph Smart directed.

It's fun. Low budget but big enough to have a pirate ship and taverns and costumes.

Movie review - 'The Devil Ship Pirates" (1964) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Put this on again just because. It looks so great for a low budget film - the ship, the costumes. Classy with its actors. Jimmy Sangster did a solid script - a lost Spanish ship, conning the locals that the Armada won, conflict within the Spanish (they are former pirates), a hero has a dud arm because the Spanish tortured him, the local leader gives in very quickly.

Could have done with another draft to improve the female roles - they are mostly victims; a traitorous woman would've been great. And maybe one to genuinely fall for a Spaniard. 

But it spanks along.

Book review - "Pirates Of Barbary Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century Mediterranean" by Adrian Tinniswood

 Really good book. Colourful, action packed. Depressing. Piracy was a real issue. So many slaves taken - this is mocked in romantic fiction but it happened all the time, so much so that a guy set up business in the barbary as an envoy to reunite people.

Movie review - "The Golden Arrow" (1962) **

 The axing of his TV show saw Tab Hunter make his inevitable way to Italy, like so many faded stars of his era. He never got his groove back but he stayed in leads for the next decade.

This has great production values and gorgeous colour. The story is in fits and starts, never quite gets its tone - part fantasy, part Robin Hood. There's some comic genies, one would've done. Rosanna Podessta is pretty as the girl the rest of the cast is indistinguished.

It looks fantastic. Hunter is alright but not quite comfortable in this world. It's weird - Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson suited it more. In his defence he's dubbed. But also he was looking like an ageing juvenile now.

Movie review - "Pirate of the Half Moon" (1957) **

 Swasbuckler with imported American star a few years before this became super, super common. John Derek was the second tier name.

He's a pirate who pretends to be a minstrel, winds up at a acastle.I got confused. He takes over the castle. There's a final fight on the beach which was decent. That's about it. Some romance.

Book review - "Captain in Calico" by George MacDonald Fraser (warning: spoilers)

 Gave this another read (well, listen - in audio book form). It's polite. Professionally written. Never comes alive. Lacks humour. Woodes Rogers sends Jack Rackham on a mission. He falls for Anne Bonney. Gets involved in piracy, gets captured. There's not a lot of story. Little of the famous humour and historical details. The ending has Rackham saved and another person killed in his place - I feel there should be more story. There's a French pirate captain straight out of Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood and Anne B is very Maureen O'Hara. Some decent action sequences. It is of interest.

Movie review - "Prince of Pirates" (1953) ***

 I watched this right after Thunderbirds and it was so much better - lively, full of colour, a very good Sam Katzman swashbuckler. John Derek is fine as a prince of some random country fighting Spain - he's a prince and the baddy is his elder brother who has inherited the throne. 

Barbara Rush has a decent part as the woman who goes along and takes part in the fighting.

Maybe it was a reaction to Thunderbirds but I really had a good time - animated, colourful, the cast are commiting, a tough enemy (there's a cut to a shot with two legs from a hanging corpse), Derek is animated, Rush is heaps of fun.

Movie review - "Mask of the Avenger" (1951) **

 Phil Karlson is known for his tough crime films and Westerns but at Columbia he made some swashbucklers - this and Lorna Doone. It's a sort of sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo - John Derek is the son of a count (I don't think it's the count, but we see a statue of the count so it's in that universe) who is murdered by Anthony Quinn, who the count discovered was embezzling. John Derek pretends to go along with it but then puts on a mask and gets busy with derring do.

Quinn acts with panache, clearly well aware he should be playing the lead but also that he has the best part. Jody Lawrance is fun as the girl. In the final sword fight between Derek and Quinn there's a bit where Lawrence takes over sword fighting duties while Derek is momentarily injured - that's cute never seen that before. I think Karlson had a soft spot for Lawrence. Or maybe he felt she had more life than Derek, who is pretty though not that lively.

In Derek's defence he doesn't have much to play. When it started off and he was pretended to be injured yet running around swashbuckling I thought 'oh he's going the Zorro route' and that would've given him something to play - pretending to be cowardly, falling in love with Lawrance who doesn't know the truth, etc. But he just puts on a mask and tells Lawrence who he is pretty quickly.

This is fine. Decent production values.

Movie review - "The Rogues of Sherwood Forest" (1950) **1/2

 Columbia had a big hit with a son of Rob Hood story, The Bandit of Sherwood Forest, so they remade it (basically) as a vehicle for their new hearthrob star, John Derek. He's Robert Jnr, back from the Crusades, fighting King John. Alan Hale is Little John, Diana Lynn the Lady Marian type.

It's a little stock, competently handled by Gordon Douglas, with some historical touches at the end with King John sealing the Magna Carta. Derek is alright - his pretty looks and moustache are reminiscent of Errol Flynn though he doesn't have Flynn's swagger. Diana Lynn is an average Marian type. George Macready shines as King John with that great noice. There's some nice Cardinal.

It's all quick and competent rather than inspired - you feel they're rushing through the tropes (" now he's back from the Crusades", "now he's with Prince John", "now there's torture") but it is in colour.

This was Alan Hale's final film and he gets the last line of dialogue "Everything has been said, and everything has been done." (It doesn't seem like his last film because his lookalike son continued to play Alan Hale type parts).

Movie review - "The Musketeer" (2001) **1/2

 Look, not bad. It pulls back on the three musketeers to focus on D'artagnan - which mightn't be such an issue if Justin Chambers hadn't been such a Ken Doll. Mena Suvari is the love interest (not Constance) and she's quite ideal; they would've been better off casting Chris Klein - or to be honest Suvari (you could've had a female D'artagnan) - or a Hong Kong star.

Stephen Rea is Richeliu and Tim Roth is a made up villain who kills D'artagnan's parents. Roth is excellent,.Half way the plot becomes about the Queen, Catherine Denveuve, and she gets all this screen time.

Chambers is a real debit. So too are the undercast musketeers. When they all arrive at the end it should be rousing but it isn't. Still, fine villains and excellent Hong Kong style action sequences - not as good as Hong Kong films themselves but effective.

Book review - "Royal Flash" by George MacDonald Fraser (1970)

 The second Flashman, it's never been one of my favourites, though it's a quality entry, full of pace, and humour. A few reasons. Flashman is too dumb, foolishly going to Europe on the basis of a dodgy letter and at the end foolishly throwing in with Lola Montez. It's set in a fictitious place, a duchy, which is inconsistent with the rest of the series. And it borrows the plot wholesale from Prisoner of Zenda, though that is amusing covered - it still feels like cheating.

Still, Lola and Bismarck are vivid characters, Irma and life in the duchy is entertaining, the plot really kicks into high gear half way through when Flashman realises he's been conned, there's plenty of fun made up characters even if pilfered from Zenda like Rudi von Sternberg, I enjoyed the Karl Marx cameo.

Movie review - "The Black Arrow" (1948) **

 Columbia went into swasbucklers in a big way after World War Two - they were usually produced by Sam Katzman or Edward Small. This one is a Small effort, based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel with the hero aged up to make a vehicle for Louis Hayward, and a dash of Robin Hood and Hamlet sprinkled into the story.

Hayward returns from the wars to find his dad dead. George Macready blames another noble, whose daughter Janet Blair is under the control of Macready. There's a sassy fiar, outlaws in the woods, a trial by combat at the end, a cameo by the future Richard III in a sort of sympathetic but not really part (he's depicted as pompous)

Director Gordon Douglas does a decent job and there's fine production values even if in black and white. But it's a sluggish tale. Uninspired support cast. Not very engaging story. I had that issue with the novel (which is different to this).

Some decent Hayward-Blair flirting but that's about it.

Movie review - "Gypsy Wildcat" (1944) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Looking for variation in the Maria Montez formula, Universal came up with gypsies, and I guess why not... you have outfits, and dances, and gypsy hotblood-ness plus some nobles. Maria is a gypsy girl who turns out to be noble. Gale Sondegaard is a gypsy, Jon Hall an agent for the king. Peter Coe is in the Turhan Bey part as a gypsy in love with Montez who I kept waiting to turn evil. Other cast members include Leo Carillo, Douglas Dumbrille and Nigel Bruce - studio pictures really had their perks.

It's in colour but not lush colour. It feels like a black and white movie (Roy William Neill directed).  I've reviewed this film before and a lot of my previous thoughts still remain. It isn't as lush visually, has resonance because it's about gypsies, it's weird that James Cain wrote it.

Still fun, even if colour is wasted.

Book review - "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman (re-reading)

 Bright, smart, funny. Lousy female characters. Its heart is with the villains. Serious subtext about pain and loss to counterbalance the silliness. Very Jewish in spirit. Slightly weird introduction - like he turned his kid into a fatty and his wife into a bitch.