Fri 12 Feb 2016
Reviewed by Jonathan Lewis: THE CRIMSON BLADE (1963).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[15] Comments
THE CRIMSON BLADE. Columbia Pictures, US, 1964. First released in the UK by Hammer Films, 1963, as The Scarlet Blade. Lionel Jeffries, Oliver Reed, Jack Hedley (as Edward Beverley, The Scarlet Blade), June Thorburn, Michael Ripper, Suzan Farmer. Screenwriter-Director: John Gilling.
For a film about standing up to tyranny, the titular hero in The Crimson Blade (released in the UK as The Scarlet Blade) is a rather undistinguished character. Set during the English Civil War, this Hammer production features Jack Hedley in the role of Edward Beverley/The Crimson Blade, a royalist fighting against Oliver Cromwell’s forces.
Problem is: he’s one of the most uninteresting, if not downright dull, heroes ever depicted in an historical epic at least as far as I can remember. If you hope to find an inspired, perhaps a bit rakish hero — a swashbuckling Errol Flynn sort – in this average costumer, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
Instead, the far more compelling character depicted in The Crimson Blade is the treacherous, borderline sociopath Captain Tom Sylvester. Portrayed by Oliver Reed with a mischievous gleam in his eye, Sylvester plays both ends against the middle to the point where you’re never exactly sure where his true loyalties lie.
He’s also the unrequited member of a love triangle that includes the daughter of his senior officer, Colonel Judd (Lionel Jeffries) and the Crimson Blade. Reed’s a fine actor and a commanding presence and it shows. It’s just unfortunate that the movie didn’t cast him in the role of the Crimson Blade. He could have made a great, if not rough around the edges, outlaw hero.
Even so, The Crimson Blade isn’t a particularly bad film. Not by any means. The film has that early Hammer Film aesthetic that I personally love. Even the more theatrical moments work well enough so that the movie rarely feels stagy. As escapism, the film works quite well. It’s just unfortunate that, with some obvious tweaking, the movie could have worked so much better.
February 12th, 2016 at 9:49 pm
I haven’t seen this one, but I’ve learned that any movie that Oliver Reed is in is worth checking into.
February 13th, 2016 at 12:29 am
Hammer had a habit of hiring offbeat or uninspiring leading men and then giving the bad guys the best roles. For some reason it was almost a rule that the heroes of a Hammer film — unless it was Cushing or Lee —– had to be as dull and uninspiring a lot as you can imagine. Of course even by that standard Jack Headley is a strange choice.
Not a bad movie by any means, but hardly a swashbuckler.
I agree about Reed, and thought it a pity in ROYAL FLASH he played Bismark and not Flashy. What a splendid Flashy he would have been.
February 13th, 2016 at 12:34 am
I second the motion. What a great series of movies could have been and never was.
February 13th, 2016 at 11:46 am
I corresponded with George MacDonald Fraser for forty years, and at no time did he ever believe Oliver Reed could or should play Flashy. Nor do I. Reed was an inelegant brute not at all the classic gentleman even if it was only veneer.
February 13th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
Barry
Do you have any idea what Fraser thought of Malcolm McDowell in the role of Flashman?
Obviously one should defer to the author’s vision of his own character, but I still think Reed could rise to the occasion and fit the part very well. I know Leslie Charteris often spoke of Cary Grant as being the ideal actor to play The Saint, but somehow or another, I’ve never been able to picture him in the role. Not that he would have been a bad one, but if I’d have been a casting director at the time, his name would never have come up on my list.
February 13th, 2016 at 2:14 pm
My problem with the Hammer “swashbucklers” was that there were never any worthwhile sword-fights in them.
February 13th, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Steve,
Mr. Fraser was dissatisfied with McDowell. In the dedication page to Royal Flash, he listed Errol Flynn, Doug, Jr. Louis Hayward, Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone. We had numerous conversations about Louis doing a cameo in The Three Musketeers as D’Artaganan’s father but obviously that did not work out.
February 13th, 2016 at 4:41 pm
In THE LIGHT’S ON AT THE SIGNPOST I think that GMF thought that Alan Bates (who is also in the movie) would have been better casting. The casting of Hammer’s heroes was a hit and miss business. In something like PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES Brooke Williams was about as dull as ome can imagine, but at the same time you had Francis Matthews in DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, who really does bring something interesting to a rather thankless role.
The thing with the ‘Swashbucklers’ was that Hammer always had one eye on the schoolkids who would be on holiday at the time of year that the movies were released. They tended to play safe by casting rather dull leading men who would be straightforward heroes for the kids. The best of that sort of movie was actually CAPTAIN CLEGG/NIGHT CREATURES, where the good guys are actually criminals, and the people who represent authority are a group of unpleasant thugs. Not only Cushing but the rest of the smugglers were very well cast.
February 13th, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Barry,
Flynn goes without saying and Hayward would have been wonderful. But loutish or not Reed would have made more sense than McDowall for me.
I’m not really sure at the time there was anyone who really fit the bill. I suppose I was thinking of Reed as Athos.
How would you have felt about Michael York in the role?
February 13th, 2016 at 10:46 pm
David,
Michael York would have, in my view, been wonderful. Curious why it wasn’t tried. As was Oliver Reed as Athos.
February 14th, 2016 at 11:54 am
Why the change of title? Does scarlet sell better than crimson in the UK and vice-versa in the USA?
February 14th, 2016 at 1:12 pm
I wondered about that myself. So much so that I checked it out on Google, but nobody else seems to have asked (or answered) the question. Since a lot of people have covered the Hammer films in detail, the answer may be out there somewhere.
February 14th, 2016 at 4:09 pm
Scarlet might have led British audiences to expect something about the Scarlet Pimpernel is my best guess, or someone thought that. Decisions like that are often made by one person with dubious reasons.
February 14th, 2016 at 4:13 pm
Also, there was a Brit swashbuckler of a few years earlier with Richard Greene called CAPTAIN SCARLET and they might not have wanted American audiences to think it was related.
Sometimes these things are changed just because someone along the chain wanted to put his two cents in.
February 14th, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Maybe someone in the American distributors remembered THE CRIMSON PIRATE and thought that crimson sounded more swashbuckling.