El capitán escarlata

Captain Scarlett is a very entertaining and enjoyable swashbuckler, I was shocked to see the low ratings (4.7/10!) as I thought it great fun.

Richard Greene is perfect as the fast talking Captain Scarlett, with an equally quick blade along with the lesser known Leonora Amar as Princess Maria (the love interest) and Nedrick Young as Pierre DuCloux (the sidekick), they both do good jobs in their roles and have good chemistry with Greene.

The plot's the usual swashbuckler standard, although there are a few interesting points such as subverting the damsel in distress trope with Princess Maria initially rejecting Captain Scarlett's less than subtle advances, and he even teaches her to swordfight remarking that "I've always wondered why Princesses weren't taught something useful like duelling". Excitingly a lot of the film is action based with many swordfights and it's only 75 minutes long so little time to get bored, whilst the swordfighting isn't as good as Errol Flynn or the like it's still well choregraphed with good sound effects, and more to the point is entertaining.

7/10: A good swashbuckler, I suggest finding the colourised version. A joy for Richard Greene fans

A rather paunchy Richard Greene treads water in this lively little swashbuckler shot in feverish colour with Mexico standing in for southern France before trading in his scarlet cloak (which does rather make him stand out) for Lincoln green and taking his crusade on behalf of the underdog to Sherwood Forest.

Brazilian leading lady Leonora Amar is a feisty Maid Marian wielding a sword in blouse, britches and boots; while given the theme sidekick Nedrick Young and writer-producer Howard Dimsdale were not surprisingly both soon blacklisted.

This has very little to do with history, or real life at any period, but it is fast-moving and colourful and I enjoyed the snappy script:

"You are insolent."

"Only to people I don't like."

Richard Greene, who played Robin Hood in the British TV series in the '50s, is playing almost the same role, in a costume from somewhere around 1800, with a sword instead of a longbow. Assurance counts for a lot, especially for a hero, and he is surrounded by presumably Mexican actors(They all have Spanish-sounding names, but the film was made in the US.) as monks, dancers, feisty heroines and lovable rogues, who know what is expected of them as well as he does. If being a travesty of history stopped a work from being enjoyed and appreciated, a lot of Shakespeare would have to be thrown out. This one is far from being Shakespeare, but it certainly is fun.

most probably will not. Many will no doubt be disappointed by the overall predictable quality of this film, its lackluster acting & direction and worst of all its disappointing sword fights and extended chase scenes. Despite all of that I did find myself enjoying Richard Greene's performance as the dashing Captain Scarlett and even more his interactions with the lovely Leonora Amar who plays Princess Maria.

This should have been a classic swashbuckler in the tradition of Zorro, Robin Hood, and Captain Blood. It has a good, traditional, premise (young nobleman returns home to find his home and land taken over by the bad guy, and then tries to get back his land, right wrongs, and free the oppressed, all while making loyal friends and falling in love), but the poor acting, directing, and way too cheesy script (so bad it's funny) ruin this movie for the sophisticated viewer. I loved this film as a child, however (the poor acting and super cheesy script did not bug me then), especially the fact that he teaches the girl (Princess Maria) how to sword fight (in one of the few good lines in the film he comments that no one has taught her anything useful - her skills up to that point being embroidery, dancing, etc).

I really wish Disney or some other company would remake this movie in to something better, instead of remaking good old films into something worse. Saddly, I fear this film has been forgotten by the big studios and that I will have to content myself with the fact that many of the things I enjoyed in the movie as a child (like the sword fighting Princess, and the way they trick the bad guys in by all dressing as Captain Scarlet) have been used since in other, better made movies.