Thu 4 Dec 2014
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE BANDITS OF CORSICA (1953).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[11] Comments
THE BANDITS OF CORSICA. United Artists, 1953. Richard Greene, Paula Raymond, Raymond Burr, Dona Drake, Raymond Greenleaf, Lee Van Cleef. Director: Ray Nazarro.
The story is kind of silly, the costumes aren’t the most spectacular, and at least one member of the cast seems as if she would have benefited tremendously from acting lessons. Even so, The Bandits of Corsica, a costumer/swashbuckler starring Richard Greene is nevertheless a fairly entertaining quasi-Western romp through Alexander Dumas’s fictionalized version of Corsican history.
Greene, in a dual role, portrays Siamese twin brothers separated at birth. Mario Franchi, the “good one,†is a wealthy Corsican with a beautiful girl by his side. The other brother, Lucien, is a shell of a man long thought dead. But he’s not dead, of course. He’s living with amnesia under the name Carlos. But that’s not all. He’s camping out with Gypsies and, through an invisible psychic connection, can feel pain that his twin brother experiences. Did I mention that deep down he hates Mario?
As far as the plot, it’s not all that elaborate. The two brothers reunite to fight the evil local tyrant, Baron Cesare Jonatto (Raymond Burr) and his nephew (Lee Van Cleef). Watching these two fine character actors portray would-be Napoleons is just a fun cinematic experience. In many ways, they’re more interesting to watch than is Greene in either of his two roles.
All told, The Bandits of Corsica is a slightly better than average 1950s adventure film. It’s not the greatest film out there for its genre, but the last half hour has a distinct Gothic atmosphere, is quite well filmed, and contains just enough action to keep the viewer’s attention.
December 4th, 2014 at 10:50 pm
Fans of Western television shows may recognize Paula Raymond as she was in quite a few
December 5th, 2014 at 9:52 am
A couple of Ray Nazarro’s Westerns are fun: The Rough, Tough West (1952) and Hoedown (1950). I had the same reaction as the above review: the films are not great classics, but they are unexpectedly enjoyable entertainment.
An impression: almost nothing has been written about Ray Nazarro.
He is hardly studied at all by film historians.
December 5th, 2014 at 11:01 am
It’s no wonder this movie felt so much like a western. Here’s a list of movies that Nazarro directed between 1945 and 1949, just as a sample:
Renegades of the Sage (1949)
Bandits of El Dorado (1949)
South of Death Valley (1949)
The Blazing Trail (1949)
Laramie (1949)
Home in San Antone (1949)
Challenge of the Range (1949)
Smoky Mountain Melody (1948)
Quick on the Trigger (1948)
El Dorado Pass (1948)
Singin’ Spurs (1948)
Trail to Laredo (1948)
The Arkansas Swing (1948)
Blazing Across the Pecos (1948)
West of Sonora (1948)
Song of Idaho (1948)
Phantom Valley (1948)
Six-Gun Law (1948)
Rose of Santa Rosa (1947)
Last Days of Boot Hill (1947)
Buckaroo from Powder River (1947)
Law of the Canyon (1947)
West of Dodge City (1947)
The Lone Hand Texan (1947)
Over the Santa Fe Trail (1947)
Lone Star Moonlight (1946)
Terror Trail (1946)
Singing on the Trail (1946)
Heading West (1946)
Cowboy Blues (1946)
The Desert Horseman (1946)
Laugh Jubilee (1946) (as Nat Nazarro)
Two-Fisted Stranger (1946)
That Texas Jamboree (1946)
Galloping Thunder (1946)
Gunning for Vengeance (1946)
Throw a Saddle on a Star (1946)
Roaring Rangers (1946)
Texas Panhandle (1945)
Song of the Prairie (1945)
Outlaws of the Rockies (1945)
December 5th, 2014 at 11:37 am
I think this is based on Alexandre Dumas’ _The Corsican Brothers_, one of his shorter works. I bought a DVD of it awhile back, but haven’t watched it yet. It sounds like there’s no hurry.
December 5th, 2014 at 11:50 am
The movie itself is a sequel to THE CORSICAN BROTHERS, the 1942 release directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. It sort of picks up where that one left off, as I understand it, with brother Lucien not having been killed after all, as it assumed he was at the end of the previous picture. Besides the characters, I don’t think this one has much to do with anything Dumas wrote, but I could be wrong about that.
December 5th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
I’ll take your word for it, Steve. I swear I ordered it along with COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO and THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK when they were offered as a unit in some catalog. I can find CRISTO and IRON MASK, but not the BANDITS. Hardly matters.
December 5th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Randy,
The three titles you’ve mentioned are all Eddie Small pictures. He took no credit on Bandits.
December 5th, 2014 at 1:43 pm
Mike,
Will look for those titles you mentioned.
I reviewed KANSAS PACIFIC, a Nazarro Western, here a few months ago:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=27888
December 5th, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Interesting title all things considered. The Corsican Brothers was remade for television (CBS I think and I believe with Trevor Eve). The Fairbanks version is a fairly minor film itself though some fun. A pitiful attempt to colorize it was made since it is in public domain.
I’m not sure if there is a French version of this though I would expect there to be several. While they are not in English or subtitled you can see both the Louis Jourdan and the Jean Marais versions of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO on YouTube as well as the Gerard de Pardieu mini series. Both film versions run about three hours usually shown in two parts.
December 5th, 2014 at 4:25 pm
There’s a remarkable similarity between the “B” westerns and “B” swashbucklers of the 1950s; With a few notable exceptions, they have the same streamlined sameness, keep returning to the same sets and locations, and even share many of the same character actors–Edgar Buchanan even turns up as the unlikeliest English Peasant of all time in THE BLACK ARROW.
December 5th, 2014 at 6:37 pm
Another similarity with the minor swashbucklers is how many of them use the same handful of scenes from THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. No matter what era it is in there go those Norman soldiers in the round helmets after guys in green tights through the forest at night and splashing across that same stream.
And everything in every picture took place in the same couple of castles.
All in all there are some entertaining films among them though, although you get some unlikely swashbucklers like Alan Ladd, Tony Curtis, and Sterling Hayden.
They had more options with westerns.