Black Gate

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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Red Sonja (1985)

The Barbarian Boom has now arrived at 1985, the trough at the low point of the arc, the rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel. What can I say? These are stinkers. At least the first two, Lost Kingdom and the notorious Red Sonja, have got parts that are so jaw-droppingly dumb that you can have fun pointing at them and hooting. However, Barbarian Queen is a movie that genuinely offends Your Cheerful Editor, which isn’t easy to do. Ugh. As always, your mileage may vary, but I don’t think anyone can champion these particular movies as genuinely good. Fortunately, the only direction from this nadir is up, as the fantasy genre slowly climbs toward the quality and respectability it will reach in, oh, fifteen years with the Peter Jackson Tolkien films.

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The Scarlet Pimpernel (UK, 1934)

The Baroness Orczy (1865-1947) – but really, we must give her her full name: Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orczi – no wonder they called her “Emmuska” for short – was a Hungarian noble by birth whose family left Hungary after her father’s farm was burned by rioting peasantry. Which may have had something to do with her later decision to write about the persecution of aristocrats during the French Revolution.

One day in 1903 the image of Sir Percy Blakeney appeared, fully formed, in Emma Orczy’s mind’s eye, and she knew she was seeing the protagonist of her next novel. She wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in five weeks and sent it out with high hopes, but a dozen publishers turned it down. With her husband’s collaboration she crafted a version of the story for the stage and found a company willing to produce it. After a slow start the play took off and became a huge success, after which selling the novel was suddenly easy.

Sequel followed sequel for the next thirty-plus years, and over more than a dozen novels and collections the dashing Scarlet Pimpernel probably saved more aristocrats from Mam’zelle Guillotine than were actually executed in the historically brief period of The Terror. But the Baroness wasn’t a historian, she was a storyteller – and few storytellers have created a character as indelible as Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Or one more perfect for translation to the silver screen.

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