The Black Knight (1954)

Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

Touches You

Good concept, poorly executed.

A Major Disappointment

Okay, Tay Garnett was a journeyman director at best, who got lucky when MGM turned him loose on the first Hollywood version (France got there first) of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but he was still too classy to be imported to helm this turkey which would have been far better suited to the likes of John Paddy Carstairs. You can get a flavour of what's in store by a look at the screenplay credits; journeyman Alec Coppel and, wait for it, 'additional dialogue' by 1) Dennis O'Keefe, veteran actor of close to 300 'B' pictures roughly half of which were 'uncredited' and our own Nobby Clarke, a.k.a. Bryan Forbes, inept actor turned writer-director winning here, in 1954, his very first writing credit. It's difficult if not impossible to believe that Ladd had just made arguably his best ever film as the eponymous Shane because as the blacksmith, John, he is pathetic at best. It's like a nightmare from which you can't awaken and are forced to keep watching.

Ah the swords and shields movie, a once thriving genre of film from yore where big bucks was thrown at the productions, and spectacle was unleashed. There were one or two exceptions, mind...Directed by Tay Garnett, produced by Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli and starring Alan Ladd, Peter Cushing and a whole host of British thespians lining up for some costume shenanigans. Story is a reworking of Arthurian England, with Ladd as a brave blacksmith who reinvents himself as the Black Knight to foil a dastard plan to overthrow King Arthur, and of course to impress the Lady Linet (Patricia Medina) who he has the major hots for. Sword play, fights, swinging about, jousts and Royal machinations do follow.In the context of its budget it's hardly the awful stinker some have lined up to proclaim it as. Oh it definitely has problems, not the least that Ladd is badly miscast and Medina just isn't good enough, but there's a great sense of fun about the whole thing. One only has to look at Cushing's performance as the villainous Sir Palamides, he's having a great old time of it prancing about in tights and smothered in so much make-up he looks like a Satsuma! If you can get into Cushing's mindset then there's fun to be had here, intentionally or otherwise!It's very colourful, costuming is impressive and with Garnett the wise old pro not wasting any chance for an action scene - or to encourage his male cast members into macho posturing - it's never dull. True, the editing is shoddy, the script (Alec Coppel) poor and some of the choreography is amateurish, but this is medieval malarkey 101. A film for the forgiving genre fan whose after a simple hour and half of robust swordery and chastity belt tamperings. 6/10

Having your wife as your agent can carry some advantages I'm sure, but when Sue Carol Ladd made a deal with Warwick Pictures in the United Kingdom for her husband to star, she did not advance his career. In fact this last one, The Black Knight, might have sunk it.The biggest mistake Alan Ladd and his wife made was leaving Paramount before Shane was released to critical and popular success. Who knows what might have happened had he stayed and the Paramount publicity machine cranked up at Oscar time for him.The Black Knight was the third film of three that Ladd did for Warwick that were released by Columbia in America. The first one, The Red Beret was a World War II story and Ladd was a Canadian to explain his non-British accent. The second, Hell Below Zero, was a modern story set on a whaling ship and was not bad and he played an American.But Ladd had no business in The Black Knight, a tale set in the days of King Arthur. Peter Cushing as Sir Palimedes, a knight who's in the Mordred vein, is plotting with Patrick Troughton playing King Mark of Cornwall to overthrow Arthur and return the isle of Britain to the Druid religion. Ladd's a blacksmith, hopelessly in love with Lady Patricia Medina whose father he is in service to. Upward mobility isn't the rule in those days, but it can be done as Ladd's friend and mentor Andre Morrell says. Go into knight training and incidentally find out what's behind all these Viking raids were having. Poor Alan Ladd just doesn't have the requisite image for dueling. Twenty years earlier Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. could have handled the role with ease. But Alan Ladd was never meant to be buckling swashes. Lines that sounded natural coming from Errol Flynn sound ridiculous from Ladd.Director Tay Garnett handles the battle sequences real nice and the rest of the British cast look like they know what they're doing. At least this was not the worst film Alan Ladd ever did. That was awaiting him in Duel of the Champions.

Arthur, if he ruled at all was about 475 AD. Saracens (Muslims), came after Muhommed (7th century AD). The armor and heraldry was of the high medieval period (10th - 12th centuries AD). The timing is all jacked up. Were people so stupid in the fifties to fall for anything, or is this just a case of reckless writers throwing ideas together over 500 years of history? This would be equal to a movie in which Christopher Columbus mans a PBR in Vietnam, and fights the Confederate navy. Saaad. So, if you have nothing else to do, like watching your toenails grow, or seeing if you can stare at the minute hand until you actually see it move, then by all means watch this movie. The only thing that could make it better, would be if it were a silent picture, and speed up the film speed by 10 percent.