The Scarlet Blade Review

• 7th Feb 2012

Although not quite as execrable as The Brigand of Kandahar, The Scarlet Blade is another DVD re-release from the Hammer archives that is unlikely to make anyone sigh with regret that “they don’t make films like this any more”.

Originally released n 1964 as The Crimson Blade, the new title probably reflects the fact that the time for caring whether or not audiences notice that this is a cheap knock-off of The Scarlet Pimpernel has long since passed.

Set during the Commonwealth period, the film opens in 1649 with the arrest of Charles I. The mysterious “Scarlet Blade” is busy moving Royalist refugees to safety while Captain Judd tries, ineptly, to stop him. This setting at least allows Hammer to wheel out some classic Hammer-isms: dank dungeons, brocade-draped halls and tightly laced bodices. However, it really doesn’t make the most of the latter. June Thorburn, as Judd’s Royalist daughter, gets just one opportunity to show off her beautifully bolstered bosom.

Oliver Reed’s magisterial Sylvester is as enticing and as dangerous as a tiger and he’s the best thing about this badly dated, historically dodgy curio. Amazingly, despite the setting and time-period, Hammer manage to work in a racially offensive stereotype anyway; “Pablo the Gypsy”, with his scarves, billowy shirt, pendants, gold earring and luscious hair, he looks more like a roadie for Hawkwind in blackface than a seventeenth century peon.

This flick is fine for whiling away a dreary Sunday afternoon if you happen to stumble across it on TV (the acting is not nearly as wooden as the prefabricated sets would imply), but there’s no reason to actively search it out.

Clare Moody