Black Gate

Chushingura: The Loyal 47 Retainers (or 47 Samurai). Japan, 1962.

After militant nationalism in Japan during the Twenties and Thirties led to the disaster of the Forties, many Japanese blamed the country’s march to war on an excessive reverence for bushido, the samurai’s martial code of honor. Media that glorified Japan’s military history was prohibited during the American occupation, but in the 1950s movies and TV shows featuring heroic samurai began returning to the mainstream. However, a significant segment of Japan’s creative community regarded this as a woeful development, and nonconformists opposed to the innate conservatism of Japanese society began making alternative samurai films that, subtly at first and then openly, accused bushido culture of oppression and cruelty. Let’s take a look at how this played out on the screen starting with two films from 1962: Chushingura, which extols the virtues of samurai honor, and Harakiri, which is a virtual mirror image of the first, examining the same themes through a different lens and reaching diametrically opposite conclusions.

Chushingura: The Loyal 47 Retainers (or 47 Samurai)

Rating: ****
Origin: Japan, 1962
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Source: Image DVD

The tale of the 47 ronin is sometimes called Japan’s national epic, as it epitomizes the samurai virtues of courage and loyalty unto death. In Japan it’s been filmed at least six times, with countless other dramatic adaptations, but Inagaki’s sumptuous 1962 movie is probably the best-known retelling to Westerners. The film’s subtitle for its English language release was “The Loyal 47 Retainers,” but in the original Japanese version it’s “Story of Blossoms, Story of Snow.” Not blossoms as of budding flowers, but the fluttering petals whose day is over, and that fall as a harbinger of the death symbolized by the coming of snow.

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The Colossus of Rhodes (Warner Bros, 1961)

It was a time of giants on the movie screen. In Japan, inspired by King Kong (1933) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1954), the kaiju, led by Godzilla, were wreaking swaths of destruction across the modern world. But by 1958, Ray Harryhausen, who’d animated The Beast, was looking backward to the ancient world, where the giants of myth had their origins, and other filmmakers in America and Europe were following the same path. Hissing hydras raised their many heads in tales of Jason and Sindbad, while Sergio Leone recreated the Colossus of Rhodes, and though he didn’t bring it to life, it was as much mechanism as statue. To see what it would be like if the colossus walked, we are indebted, once again, to Ray Harryhausen.

The Colossus of Rhodes

Rating: ****
Origin: Italy/Spain/France, 1961
Director: Sergio Leone
Source: Warner Bros. DVD

This is Sergio Leone’s first film as a director, and it’s mostly excellent. After working as assistant director on sword-and-sandal epics such as Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), Leone finally got to show what he could do as lead on this picture, which is probably the best-looking Italian historical epic of the peplum era. It has its drawbacks, though, particularly its questionable choice of lead in American cowboy star Rory Calhoun, who combines the glowering good looks of a Robert Mitchum with the leering insouciance of Dean Martin. An ancient Greek hero he ain’t. And, frankly, seven screenwriters is too many, even if one of them is Leone himself.

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The Adventures of Don Juan (Warner Bros, 1948)

Errol Flynn’s late-career swashbucklers are widely considered mediocre efforts, desperate attempts by an aging and fading star to recapture his youthful popularity, but that sells the films short. It’s true that by the late Forties, Flynn could no longer match the vigor and charm of his performances in Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Sea Hawk (1940) … but really, who could? Compared to any other standard, Flynn’s later sword-slingers are average at worst and mostly better than that. Flynn wasn’t keen to make most of these pictures; he was well aware that he wasn’t the athletic rascal he’d been almost twenty years before, but he was still a solid leading man and now and then the old charm shone through. Enjoy these films for what they have to offer, and you won’t be sorry.

The Adventures of Don Juan

Rating: ***
Origin: USA, 1948
Director: Vincent Sherman
Source: Warner Bros. DVD

Errol Flynn had given up doing swashbucklers after The Sea Hawk (1940), but with the revival of the historical adventure genre in the late ‘40s, Warner Bros. gave him a sword and put him back in trunk-hose for The Adventures of Don Juan.  It must be said, Flynn doesn’t seem entirely comfortable in the role of Don Juan de Maraña, the scandal-plagued womanizing rogue who is forced to give up his naughty ways and turn over a new leaf. After disgracing himself by plucking forbidden fruit at the English Court, Don Juan is summoned back to Madrid by the Queen of Spain (Viveca Lindfors) and commanded to reform. And, however improbably, he does, because his soul is purified for the first time by his true love … for the queen herself. (No, really.) Unfortunately, purged of the rakish qualities that made the character distinctive, Don Juan becomes a conventional noble who gets entangled in conventional court intrigues, saving the queen from a conventional treasonous minister by foiling his conventional plot at the last minute—as usual.

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Come Drink With Me (Hong Kong, 1966)

Even if you’re not a big fan of wuxia, or Chinese historical martial arts films, you’ve certainly seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, so you’re aware of their distinctive visual style. That style, of course, didn’t come out of nowhere, it developed over time, and can be traced back to the work of one man, writer-director King Hu, the creator of the modern wuxia movie. This week we’re looking at Hu’s first three hugely influential films, which established the tropes, look, and feel of the genre in the Asian cinema of the late Sixties.

Come Drink With Me

Rating: *****
Origin: Hong Kong, 1966
Director: King Hu
Source: 88 Films Blu-ray

Sometime during the Ming Dynasty, a government official commands a file of troops who are escorting wheeled cages bearing captive bandits to prison. Suddenly they’re stopped by a white-robed man with a petition, demanding the release of the leader of the Five Tigers criminal gang. The petition is refused, and the response of the Five Tigers is instant: the troops are slain in a bloody massacre and their commander, the son of the local governor, is captured as a hostage. What can the governor do but send the Golden Swallow to rescue him?

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Romeo and Juliet, 1936

William Shakespeare was the greatest playwright in history (fight me!), but his record as a screenwriter is, shall we say, uneven. There’s a long list of films adapted from or inspired by the works of the Bard of Avon, but most of them are considerably less memorable than their sources. However, sometimes a filmmaker steps up and meets the challenge and the result is a movie one can watch over and over with admiration and pleasure. Here are three films based on Shakespeare that also play regularly at our notional Theatre of the Crossed Swords. [Insert favorite Shakespeare quote here!]

Romeo and Juliet

Rating: *****
Origin: USA, 1936
Director: George Cukor
Source: Warner Bros. DVD

What’s Romeo and Juliet doing in the Cinema of Swords? Isn’t that a love story? It is, but this version is a love story punctuated by four superb rapier duels, three of them involving Basil Rathbone, and one of those is against Leslie Howard — that’s right, Sherlock Holmes crosses swords with the Scarlet Pimpernel!

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The Sword and the Rose (Walt Disney, 1953)

What? Has Lawrence run out of theme ideas? Has the well gone dry at last? Perish the thought! I was just looking at my list and saw there were several movies with “Sword” in the title that we hadn’t covered yet, and they’re all worth discussing, so here we are.

The Sword and the Rose

Rating: ***
Origin: UK/USA, 1953
Director: Ken Annakin
Source: Walt Disney Home Video

This is based on the popular 1898 novel When Knighthood Was in Flower by Charles Major, a Victorian historical romance that had been filmed twice before in the silent era, and has just enough swashbuckling in it for inclusion here. Despite its title, it’s not set in medieval times but during the early reign of King Henry VIII, telling the story of his sister, Princess Mary Tudor, and her (largely unhistorical) love for Charles Brandon, a mere captain of the guard. Brandon is played by Disney’s chosen leading man of the time, Richard Todd, in perhaps his best performance, though he was better known for Dam Busters (1955). Princess Mary is played by Glynis Johns, who has the impossible task of making her willful and selfish character seem adorable, but she’s so good she almost pulls it off. The leads are supported by a cast of fine British actors that includes James Robertson Justice as King Henry, Michael Gough as the Duke of Buckingham, and Rosalie Crutchley as Queen Katherine, all benefiting from a strong script with a lot of cutting gibes and haughty rejoinders.

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The Conqueror (1956)

Let’s get barbaric! Preferably on horseback in central or western Asia. Our first movie, John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror, is so terrible that it’s famous for being terrible, while our second film, The Tartars, is just as terrible but unfairly and surprisingly overlooked, especially since one of its stars is Orson Welles. Ah, but our third movie, Taras Bulba…. Now that’s good stuff. So, ferment some milk, shave your skull except for a scalplock, and leave your effete civilizations behind, because we’re going steppin’ on the Steppes!

(And by the way, if this kind of setting is to your taste, you’re going to love the Harold Lamb short story collections edited by our own Howard Andrew Jones, stories that were a major inspiration and influence for Robert E. Howard. The books, including all four volumes of The Complete Cossack Adventures, plus Swords from the Desert, Swords from the West, Swords from the East, and Swords from the Sea, are still available in digital format — and if you move quickly, there may still be a few print copies left.

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The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

Your honor, I stand before you charged with three counts of Monte Cristo, and while I could plead insanity, instead I’ll Dumas best to explain.

(I slay me.)

Alexandre Dumas’s most popular and enduring novels are The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and one of the most remarkable things about them is that he wrote them at the same time! They were published in simultaneous serial form in two different Parisian periodicals, with T3M finishing first because Monte Cristo was the longer novel. Though written together, the two are very different: T3M is an action-packed tale of youthful heroism, practically the definition of a swashbuckler, while Monte Cristo is a slow-burn revenge fantasy, a swashbuckler more in its themes than its action. It still holds up today; if you haven’t read it, or haven’t read it lately, I recommend the Penguin Books translation by the late Robin Buss. (I know a little bit about translating Dumas, so take my word for it!)

But enough about the book: we’re here for the flicks! Monte Cristo was filmed many times during the silent era, and at least three of those adaptations have survived, but this week we’re going to look at the first thirty years of its sound versions in English. Prepare yourself for the vengeance of Edmond Dantès!

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Daimajin (or Majin the Monster of Terror)

In the menagerie of Japanese postwar film studios, the Toho Company was the 900-pound King Kong, known best for its crime and samurai films, including those of director Akira Kurosawa. Toho hit the international big time in 1954 with Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which, though inspired by King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, really counts as the first of the kaiju, or Japanese-style giant monster movies. Toho followed up in 1956 with Godzilla Raids Again, and expanded the franchise late in that year with Rodan.

Over the next several years Toho doubled down on the monster bet, adding Mothra, King Kong himself, and Ghidorah, and by the early Sixties other Japanese studios started getting in on the act. This included Daiei Films with their kaiju Gamera, who “starred” in seven features from 1965 through 1971. We know Daiei primarily for the Zatoichi series, which capitalized on their skill at churning out fair-to-exceptional historical samurai adventures mainly for the Japanese market. With Gamera, Daiei had a series that sold internationally as well, and they had the idea of mashing up their two most popular genres, kaiju and chambara, into a single series. (They weren’t alone in this idea: see also Toei’s The Magic Serpent.)

Samurai vs. a giant monster! Thus was born the Daimajin trilogy, which we’re taking a look at this week.

Daimajin (or Majin the Monster of Terror)

Rating: ****
Origin: Japan, 1966
Director: Kimiyoshi Yasuda
Source: Mill Creek Blu-ray

By the mid-Sixties, the Daiei studio was having success in two genres, giant monster movies and samurai adventure films. Why not cross the streams?

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Blackbeard the Pirate (1952)

The role of Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 Treasure Island finally launched the talented English actor Robert Newton into international stardom. As Silver, Newton popularized the broad West-Country accent that’s become the default talk-like-a-pirate voice of buccaneering rogues ever since. (You can blame—or acclaim— Newton for the ubiquitous piratical “Ahr!”) But fame ruined the actor, enabling endless rounds of drink, gambling, and the kind of wild behavior that made him a role model for Oliver Reed and Keith Moon. And Newton was never able to escape the shadow of the one-legged pirate with the parrot on his shoulder—but typecast though he was, you can still see that he enjoyed the role even while repeating it. Newton died from alcohol-related heart failure in 1956, and his ashes were buried at sea in the English Channel off Cornwall: “Ahr-men.”

Blackbeard, the Pirate

Rating: **
Origin: USA, 1952
Director: Raoul Walsh
Source: Amazon streaming video

On November 22, 1718, Edward Teach, the notorious pirate known as Blackbeard, was killed on his ship the Adventure during a fierce boarding action led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard. By the time he was brought down, Blackbeard had been shot five times and suffered twenty wounds from edged weapons. For the most famous image depicting this event, look no further than the painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris on the cover of your editor’s Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure anthology.

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