El tulipán negro

In this first ¨Tulipe Noire¨ starred by Alain Delon took a chance and jumped from Film Noir , action genre to costumed comedy-adventures ; he steals the show as a masked hero relishing his secret identity on his horse called Voltaire and in cape and wielding sword ; executing bounds and leaps , twists and climbs and throughly enjoys himself . In 1789, at the beginning of French Revolution , an outlaw named "Black Tulip" held the surroundings of a town called Roussillon in fear . The inimitable Alain Delon in a double role as Julien De Saint Preux/Guillaume De Saint Preux, as he dons a black outfit and becomes the Black Tulip , the legendary masked , hero of oppressed who declares himself a revolutioner . Black Tulip riding in the hoof-prints, enjoys his hidden activity in black cape and wielding blade and helps the good people who are mistreated ,thwarting the ambitious plans of the meanie official , as the poor people respect him like a new Robin Hood . When he contends Baron Mouche (Adolfo Marsillach) , he was wounded , but then appears his twin brother . Meanwhile , he falls in love with gorgeous Caroline (Virna Lisi) . He battles against Marquis of Vigogne (Akim Tamiroff) , baron La Mouche and Prince of Grasillach (Robert Manuel) . Black Tulip's helped by a servant named Brignon (Jose Jaspe) and unites forces to Plantin (Francis Blanche), his beautiful daughter and revolutionaries .

Derring-do , feats, adventures, humor and action find this agreeable swashbuckler . Alain Delon runs and jumps, bounds and leaps all over the images and Adolfo Marsillach overacting outrageously when plays the villain Baron . Black Tulip-Delon splendidly fights evildoers and greed oppressors , while saving his brother an the damsel in distress . Delon made the character of Zorro his own and quickly established himself as a French legend ; starring years later , a similar film titled ¨Zorro¨ by Duccio Tessari . Delon is terrific as the Black Tulip , well accompanied by ideal heroine , a pretty Virna Lisi . Nice cast keeps the picture moving at a rapid clip , special mention for Adolfo Marsillach as a grumpy and bungler baron in a sensationalistic and exaggerated performance . Being a French-Spanish co-production appears several secondary actors seen in usual genres of the 60s as Jose Jaspe , Alvaro De Luna, Jorge Rigaud , Enrique Avila , Perla Cristal and Laura Valenzuela , wife of film producer , Jose Luis Dibildos . The film is set during French Revolution , though was filmed in Spain, Sevilla Films, Madrid, (studio) and Trujillo, Cáceres, Extremadura ; displaying a colorful cinematography by Henry Decae . Lively and jolly musical score with rousing leitmotif by Gerard Calvi .

The motion picture was well-mounted and fast paced by Christian Jacque, an expert on adventures and historic genre as proved in ¨Fanfan¨, ¨Lady Hamilton¨ , ¨Madame Sans Gene¨ , ¨Madame Du Barry¨ , ¨Lucrece Borgia¨, among others . Ratinh : 6,5 . Worthwhile watching .

Just for cape and sword adventure fans, "The Black Tulip" is the French version of Zorro. Very much alike. There's Alain Delon in the main role for the ladies and he is not bad. You'll also find Virna Lisi in one of her early works rendering an acceptable work too. But if it comes to acting, veteran Akim Tamiroff is the clear winner in a supporting role as a villain noble. Photography and shooting on location in real palaces and old European cities add to the movie and a sort of sticky tune helps too.

But what "The Black Tulip" really lacks is the sense of passion and real heroism American classics of the genre usually transmit, this being really odd since most of them are usually located in Europe including France. I think the director didn't make up his mind whether this would be a serious swashbuckler with a touch of humor or a comedy with a touch of serious adventure. So it didn't work neither way.

Nonetheless the film is entertaining and worth a watch.

In 1789 France, a thief known as La Tulipe Noir, regaled in black, including a black mask and cape, is going through France robbing noblemen. This sounds like Zorro or Robin Hood, except that the sentence ends "stealing from noblemen." Nothing about helping the poor. La Tulipe Noir, in reality Count Guillaume de Saint Preux (Alain Delon) is interested only in getting money and enjoying his clandestine affair with Marquise Catherine de Vigogne, who is a married to Marquis de Vigogne (Akim Tamiroff).

The French somehow believe in La Tulipe as a revolutionary hero. But no one knows who he is. The Chief of Police Baron La Mouche (Adolfo Marsillach) believes Guillaume is La Tulipe and runs a sword down the man's cheek during an event, figuring when he's making his robbery rounds, he'll be easy to recognize.

Now unable to rob anyone, Guillaume sends for his younger lookalike brother, Julien (Alain Delon) to lure La Mouche. Julien is guileless and idealistic, not to mention romantic, so when he meets Caroline Plantin, (Verna Lisi) a revolutionary, he falls for her.

Julien soon learns that Guillaume is not interested in being a revolutionary so he takes on his La Tulipe persona to support the revolutionaries.

This story is loosely based on a Dumas novel - real loosely, from what I understand. I found it delightful and very tongue-in-cheek. It's not as good as the Mark of Zorro of Tyrone Power, which had humor but also exciting drama, but it was still fun. Delon himself would play Zorro about ten years after this.

Delon plays both brothers beautifully, Guillaume more macho and tough, Julien sweet and innocent. His acting can be controversial because of his staggering, almost impossible good looks and a charisma that wipes everybody else off the screen. And let's face it, it's usually men who find fault with him. If you've seen "Two Men in Town," "Mr. Klein," "Notre Histoire," and many others, he's an excellent actor, the winner of two Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.

Akim Tamiroff and Adolfo Marsillach are fantastic in their roles, bringing a good deal of humor to them.

This was a non-dubbed version with subtitles - you will certainly be let down if you see it dubbed. Very good film.

French version of the Zorro legend set during the period just prior to the French Revolution plays like Zorro the Gay Blade at times. Its an amusing romp with Alain Delon in the heroic lead (Delon would take up the mantle of Zorro a decade later and sleep walk his way through the role). Its the typical stuff with the "bandit" hailed as hero while the ruling class hates his guts. Filled with funny remarks and great action this is a film to search out, or would be if there were any decent copies floating around. The only way it seems to see this is on really bad low budget videotapes, which is a shame since its better than most swashbuckling romps that have appeared over the years.

First of all, this film has nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas' great novel, which takes place entirely in Holland in the 17th century and mainly is about cultivating tulips, which was a craze in Holland at that time. In the novel they struggled with the challenge of bringing forth an entirely black tulip, which is botanically impossible. Here they present black tulips galore, as if they grew in thousands, like another signature of another scarlet pimpernel, which underscores the aburdity of the script of this film, which is practically all nonsense with great sequences of sword-fighting, colourful rides and excursions, great chases on horseback, plenty of romantic flirts and courting and a thronged mess of general fighting. The colours and cinematography is outstanding like the dazzling show-off of brilliant French theatre and diction, but the script is just awful, all characters being casually superficial and disturbingly cynical, with only Akim Tamiroff standing out as something of an original character, but you are never informed of why and how he was ultimately hanged. This is casual superficial entertainment in dashing colours and swashbuckling splendour but nothing else, with no realism and no link with reality at all. Pity, because Christian-Jacque made some of the most brilliant costume films of France, the greatest being perhaps "Fanfan la Tulipe" 1952 with Gerard Philippe and Gina Lollobrigida, which was much more ingenious and original.