Looking for great sword & swashbucklers here. Movies, books, individual scenes, whatever.
The Princess Bride - takes the prize for both my favorite swashbuckling film and best swordfight (the Cliffs of Insanity sequence). I would have loved it even without Mandy Patinkin in tight pants and leather boots.
The Pyrates - book by George McDonald Fraiser. Hilarious sendup of pirates in history & fiction. If someone could just get it right on film…
And some individual performances:
Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in Robin Hood and Captain Blood
James Mason as Rupert of Hentzau in The Prisoner of Zenda
Basil Rathbone (again) in “The Court Jester” (lose to Danny Kaye and still look like a badass - how many people could do that)
The Court Jester is absolutely brilliant. My fencing teacher’s master taught Danny Kaye his moves, all of which are part of the Italian sabre technique. Apparently he was a tremendously quick learner, since he had such a strong dance background.
What about “Swashbuckler” with Robert Shaw, Beau Bridges, and that big bald black man with the great deep voice who used to do commercials (“Ahhhhhhhahahahaha”)? It was great fun, though a bit dated now I imagine.
“Princess Bride” rules, as does anything in which Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks Jr. swashed or buckled.
Roman Polanski dierected “Pirates” starring Walter Matthau. It truly, truly sucked. As did “Cutthroat Island” starring Geena Davis. Aside from “Muppet Treasure Island”, there hasn’t been a good pirate film in decades! What is wrong with that? It’s way past time for a rousing pirate movie a la “Captain Blood” or “The Black Swan”. For that matter, it’s long overdue for a remake of “The Prisoner of Zenda” (I’m not counting the awful Peter Sellers version of 20 years or so ago).
OK, it’s not exactly swashbuckling, but ya gotta love the big fight scene in the funeral mounds in Conan the Barbarian. Well staged, and the music syncs so well with the action it gives you goosebumps. Plus the opening speech/prayer by Schwarzenegger is just kinda cool ("…and if you do not lizzen, den to hell wit you!"). They made two guys holding off a small army believable and exciting.
Don’t forget the Hong Kong action genre (the midieval China epic movies, that is) for swashbuckling either - any fight scene involving any wooden structure and/or Jet Li or Mechelle Yeoh is a definite winner. Check out “The Legend of Fung Say Yuk” (probably misspelled, but oh well…)
Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers has, IMHO, the best sword-fighting scenes because they are both graceful and also down-&-dirty (sort of like how you imagine they might have really fought). Plus a great cast: York, Reed, Dunaway, Welch, Heston, Lee, Chamberlain, Chaplin, Finlay…
An underappreciated one is Mamoulian’s The Mark of Zorro. Not only does it have a better babe (yes de Havilland is a better actress, but Darnell is really worth fighting for), but Basil Rathbone is better than in any of the Flynn films, and even he admitted that Tyrone Power could’ve wiped the floor with Flynn. Alas, no Technicolor or Korngold score, but I still like it better than the admittedly fun Adventures of Robin Hood from two years earlier.
The Princess Bride - not much even comes close to the Cliff on Insanity scene, although for sheer art the hallway scene with Inigo vs. four hapless guards is pure poetry. Actually finishes with a passata soto and gets away with it!
Maeglin, I think your teacher’s master was my teacher for a while. Ralph Faulkner. He was 92 and the last living Olympian when I found out he was still alive and I had to go and study with him. His feet didn’t have it anymore, and he didn’t always remember my name, but in seconds his hand could have you looking like St. Sebastian after they pulled out all the arrows.
Kilt-wearin’, if you like that sort of thing, check out The Yakuza. Tanaka Ken holds off an entire room full of swordspeople and never actually looks at any of them. 'Cause if you look at one…
Sorry I can’t agree about the Lester Musketeers films. Great treatment of the cavalier attitude, sucky swordwork. I know Bill Hobbs was trying to convey a feeling of violence, but c’mon! Guys who spend their lives studying rapier, NEVER decide, just for variety, to grab the blade and swing the hilt!
Another note on practical swordsmanship. Check out the swordwork in The Wind and the Lion. Not what anyone would call swashbuckling, but Sean Connery in the character of Raisuli, uses the sword like what it is - a tool for killing people. Particularly impressive is a horseback-chase with Raisuli trailing a bad guy along the beach. He approaches from the shallower side, forcing the other horse into deeper water, which slows it down. Snick.
Sorry Y’all never saw me take out four zombies in Army of Darkness. Somewhere on the cutting room floor…
Ah, the single best Zorro film. Great villain in Rathbone, and the greatest swashbuckler in Tyrone Powers (who is also great as a pirate in The Black Swan. The original intimidation scene of all in Mark, where Rathbone slices his rapier through a candle, cutting it cleanly as the candle top falls to the floor. He lok triumphant, until Powers does the same - except that nothing happens. Rathbone sneers, until Powers reaches over and lifts the cleanly cut top of the candle, with the flame still lit. Now that’s oneupmanship.
Fraid not. The fencing Maestro in question is Frederic Rohdes. He also taught Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, by the way. A little bio on Rohdes is located here.
I have nothing to add to the list of swashbucking flicks, but this is a good excuse to throw around some more fencing trivia. (We’re wearing out our welcome on the Olypian thread.)
Ravendriver, IIRC, Ralph Faukner was the fencing body double in many famous swashbucking flicks, standing in for many of the headliners during the dueling scenes. Basil Rathbone, however, was a credible fencer and performed all his swordfighting scenes himself.
On the topic of celebrity fencers (gratuitous trivia alert…), singer Neil Diamond went to NYU on a fencing scholarship, and Za Za Gabor (sp???) CLAIMS to have been an expert fencer when her family lived in Hungary. (I know the Neil Diamond statement is true; believe Za Za’s claim at your own risk!)
Lucie asked about great pirate movies. My fave – albeit with no swordplay to speak of – is a little-known Kirk Douglas & Yul Brenner flick based on a Jules Verne story called “Light at the End of the World.” I love how Brenner and his fellow pirates play their roles without any of the campiness usually associated with the genre.
Mattk - The crimson pirate rules! very few that I know of have ever heard of this great little flick. Lancaster, a former circus performer, did all of his own stunts.
A follow up for the adventure-bound watcher is " The flame and the flower" no wait, that is a romance novel title…well, it’s by Burt Lancaster and his buddy Nick and just as enjoyable.