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I just watched the 1940 and 1974 versions of the film.
The older version holds up better, despite the newer one being an almost word for word, shot for shot remake in color using the same music.
All the newer version has going for it is Ricardo Montalban as Captain Esteban.
It reminded me how much I love swashbuckler films.
Tyrone Power's fight against Basil Rathbone as Zorro and Capt. Pasquale in the 1940 version is a masterpiece. Jill Bearup does a great breakdown of it.
Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn (and a few others) basically codified swordfighting in the 30's and 40's. Kind of a combination of fencing and the real sword fighting schools of the times, of which Basil was quite proficient. There's a big difference between slinging a standard theatrical blade and a schlager blade or double-wide epee.
ReplyDeleteIt's why basically any sword fighting movie with Basil and Erroll or Basil and anybody (like Danny Kaye) like "Captain Blood," "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Zorro" and "The Court Jester" are sooo much better than newer stuff.
Same theatrical rules (and real fencing rules, not Olympic fencing, used for, oh, "The Three Musketeers" with Michael York or "Romeo and Juliet" with, again, Michael York actually look seriously good for their sword fights.
The newer Zorro and such, well, it's obvious that the actors have had some training but not enough.
Imagine sending them to a fighting school like what Keanu Reeves did for John Wick or the casts of "Saving Private Ryan" or "Band of Brothers" had to go through, where they have a 6-12 week intensive and immersive training in not only weapons handling but the culture of the time period using the weapons (and the clothing, geez, the clothing, hate watching the garb wear the actor rather than the other way around.) Think how much better the movies overall would be.
Side note, it was not unusual for the Hollywood swells, Basil, Errol and the guys who hung around with them, to break out into sword fighting wherever they were, on the beach, at homes, at restaurants. It's why, once they figured out how to make fighting look good, they practiced even when not on set, for fun, to stay in shape, for bets, for girls, but mostly for fun.
Amazing people, wanting to make things look better than the norm because they were interested in the craft.
There was an active fencing scene in the film community back then. I've read that while he lost most of his onscreen fights, general consensus was that in a real sword fight, Basil Rathbone would have easily dominated most of his co-stars. However, he was terrified when he went up against Danny Kaye in The Court Jester, because Kaye really didn't know what he was doing and could easily do something totally unpredictable.
DeleteYep. Basil was the real deal. And they fenced 'in the round' (as in around the area, attacking sides and moving) rather than just strip fencing. Must have been very interesting to watch. And participate in.
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