Black Gate

Warring Clans (Japan, 1963)

In the Fifties and Sixties, samurai adventures occupied roughly the same entertainment niche in Japan as Westerns in the USA. Just as there were comedy Westerns, there were funny chambara films — though based on the movies that actually made it to Europe and the States, you might not know it, as the samurai films that got overseas distribution were mostly as serious as a hanging. However, tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight: this week we’re taking a look at three of the best humorous chambara films. They tend more toward sly parody than slapstick, so don’t expect Mel Brooks. But count on it: they still feature plenty of swordplay.

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Zorro, like the Batman, who borrowed more than a little from the adventures of the masked hero, is a perennial; Hollywood always has another reboot percolating in pre-production somewhere, and occasionally one of these makes it to the screen and the black-clad outlaw rides again. Disney’s Zorro was the definitive version from the late Fifties until the Seventies, when alternative takes on the evergreen character began to appear once more. The legend of Zorro is sturdy, iconic, and can stand a lot of revision and still work quite well. This week let’s look at Guy Williams’ version for Disney, and then a couple of variations on the theme once the character began to emerge from Williams’ long shadow.

(Reminder: Zorro’s first appearance, by the hero’s creator, Johnston McCulley, is included in Your Editor’s Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure anthology.)

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Hercules in the Haunted World (Italy, 1961)

During the late Fifties and early Sixties, if you were a fan of films of imagination and the fantastic, though there were plenty of monster movies playing at the drive-in, except for the films of Ray Harryhausen there were very few classical fantasies coming out of Hollywood — and Harryhausen’s movies were mostly British productions. In fact, heroic fantasy films were thin on the ground, being regarded in America as fodder for children. Fortunately, that wasn’t always the case in Europe, where monsters still found themselves opposed by sword-swinging heroes as often as by modern soldiers with bazookas. And occasionally, those films would make it across the Atlantic, though they were usually relegated to double bills with fare such as Reptilicus and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

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I recently finished reading Eiji Yoshikawa’s long, 1,500-page novel, Musashi, originally serialized in Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun between 1935 and 1939. It tells a fictionalized story of the early life of Musashi Miyamoto, the celebrated author of The Book of Five Rings who is considered by many the finest exemplar of Bushido, the warrior code of the samurai.

It was a good read, which was no surprise — the book has sold far more than 100 million copies, and its depiction of Musashi has inspired a number of screen incarnations, none more famous than Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy (1954-1956), starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi. After finishing the novel I decided to give the films a rewatch and they stood up well, so I thought I’d present them here. Of course, we covered Samurai I in a Cinema of Swords article in October 2020, but here are Samurai II and III and a sort of spin-off from the following year, Sasaki Kojiro.

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See The Northman if you can.

I went by myself. Mattie did not think it was what she needed just now. There are, I think, three other people in the theater. Price may have been an issue. I got in at a senior discount and it cost $12.09. I can prove I am a senior by remembering when kiddie matinees were 25 cents and regular movies were about a dollar.

In any case, it is superb for what it is. A grown-up Robert E. Howard movie, filled with hatred and vengeance and swordplay, but with real emotions and believable characters, as opposed to when we get in the typical cheapo sword & sorcery flick. (In which category I include the Schwarzenegger Conan movies.) It is of course heavily derived from Icelandic saga material, and also from the earlier, Danish version of the Hamlet story, which comes from Saxo Grammaticus. Prince Amleth, aged about ten, sees his father murdered by his uncle, then escapes, is thought dead, grows up to be a berserker, and is honor-bound to seek revenge. He makes dismaying discoveries about his mom.

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