La légende de l'épée magique

Arabian Nights adventure with luxurious costumes , brisk action , fencing and dealing with a tale about a magic sword. More fabulous than the tales of the Arabian Nights , more exciting tan the travels of Marco Polo , more spectacular tan the splendors of Kublai Khan . Harum (Rock Hudson) is a valiant hero of the people who comes to Bagdad to revenge the killing of his daddy and meets Krairuzan (Piper Laurie), a princess masked as a commoner, working against a scheme by a gang of evil bandits attempting to do away with her father, the Caliph . The disguised girl gives Harum a golden sword which, in his hands, makes him a brave heroe . Harum and is doing quite well until a duplicate sword is placed in his scabbard during one of his off-guard moments, and he winds up in chains . His Blade Of Gold... A Legend In Battle! Her Kiss Of Surrender... The Prize Of Victory!

Oriental adventure with all the usual ingredients , including glowing colour and distinctive photography in Cinemascope . Adventure and stirring movie set in Bagdad , including bandits , schemers , a cunning Calipha , gorgeous dancers , intriguing sheiks , and many other things . Another look at ¨The Golden Blade¨ today reveals it to be a bit short on action but here outstanding the sympathetic and funny Rosetta Jacobs , alias Piper Laurie . Hudson gives a passable acting as an invincible merchant who swears to avenge his daddy and is soon involved the twisted intrigue and mysterious plots . Hudson using the powerful sword in the name of justice managed to spring from this ridiculous camp Oriental Adventure outing to stardom .Rock as the fearless merchant Harun Al-Rashid avenges his daddy's murder in this adventure set in ancient Bagdad and Hudson work is well up to his ordinary high standards , being inspired from the Arabic fairy tales of One Thousand and One Nights . This is Hudson's second adventure in the East , the others were :The Desert Hawk , Bengal Brigade , Spiral road , Battle Hymm , and Thunder of God . Rock was Douglas Sirk's fetish actor including essential titles as Taza , Magnificent obsession , Written in the wind , among others . He is well supported by Piper Laurie who really was a pretty package and she is was worth the price of admission to see her . Support cast is very good such as : Gene Evans , George Macready , Kathleen Hughes , Steven Geray , Edgar Barrier and Richard Carlson as Narrator .

Colorfully produced by Leonard Goldstein and Universal International , being accompanied by brilliant and glimmer cinematography carried out by director of photography by Maury Gertsman who photographed numerous Universal productions .The motion picture was professionally made by a magnificent director , Nathan Juran, who sometimes used pseudonym "Nathan Hertz" who collaborated with Charles H. Schener in several films . Nathan directs it all in stylish Technicolor . Before entering the film industry as an art director in 1937 Nathan ¨Jerry¨Juran won an Academy Award for art direction on How Green Was My Valley (1941). World War II interrupted his film career, and he spent his war years with the OSS. Returning to Hollywood, he turned to directing films in the 1950s. He handled mostly low-budget westerns and sci-fi opuses, as ¨First man in the moon¨, ¨The brain from planet Arous¨, ¨The deadly Mantis¨ , ¨20 million miles to Earth¨ , ¨Jack the Giant Killer¨ , his most famous being The attack of the 50 foot woman (1958) . He was also responsible for the superb fantasy adventure The 7th voyage of Sinbad (1958). Juran directed some Westerns starred by Audie Murphy such as ¨Drums Across the River¨, ¨Tumbleweed¨ , ¨Gunsmoke¨ and ¨Law and Order¨ with Ronald Reagan . In the early 1960s, he journeyed to Europe, where he spent several years piloting adventure epics and spaghetti westerns such as ¨Land raiders¨. Juran made sensational Sci-fi and fantastic movies , such us : ¨First men oh the moon¨, ¨The 7th voyage of Simbad¨ , ¨20 million miles to earth¨, ¨Jack the Giant Killer¨ and several others .

When Universal Pictures made those Arabian Nights films with Jon Hall, Sabu, and Maria Montez in the Forties a lot of expensive period sets were built on that lot. The rule is get use of them, so even after Universal became Universal-International in the Fifties with a crop of new leading men like Jeff Chandler, Tony Curtis, and Rock Hudson they still kept cranking out those old tales set in the Caliphate of Old Bagdad.

This film is a reworking of the Christian Sword and the Stone legend into the Arabian Nights. Haroun of Basra played by Rock Hudson comes upon his dying father in an ambushed caravan and he's given a mission to find the murderer who is also trying to stir up trouble between Basra and Bagdad.

While on the mission he comes upon a magic sword in a marketplace and discovers he's invincible with it. He also comes upon the Caliph's daughter the blond Piper Laurie who likes to roam the streets of Bagdad incognito to sample public opinion and get a taste of adventure to the annoyance of her father Edgar Barrier.

But there's treason afoot in the palace with Grand Vizier George MacReady and son Gene Evans who want the throne for themselves. Evans wants to marry for it which bothers his mistress Kathleen Hughes a lot.

During the course of the film the magic sword is stolen from Hudson and later when Evans was trying to use it, he rammed it into the palace wall and no one can get it from the stone foundation. I'll give you one guess who can.

The Golden Blade is the average Universal Arabian Nights epic with a lot of gaudy color cinematography, with a bigger budget you'd think it was a DeMille film. No better or worse than some of what Universal was putting out in those years. I'm sure Piper Laurie felt the same as Maureen O'Hara did in these kind of films, Maureen in her memoirs realized how ridiculous a redhead was in the Middle East.

George Macready was one of the best movie villains ever in just about any kind of genre be it western, noir, sand and sandal, you name it. He does a wonderful job mouthing some lines that were quite frankly ridiculous with earnest conviction.

By the way if you were to make a golden blade it would not be much use to you if it weren't enchanted. As any geologist will tell you, gold is the softest and most malleable of metals, remember in the days of gold coin people would bite into it to see if it was genuine and if the coin had teeth marks, you knew it was good.

The Golden Blade is entertaining enough and not to be taken too seriously.

Arabian Nights adventures were staples on Italian TV in my childhood; this (acquired fairly recently on DVD as part of Universal's "Rock Hudson: Screen Legend" set) was one of them, though I'd practically forgotten all about it in the interim. Not that it's in any way a memorable entry in the genre, and certainly not original – since this is basically the Excalibur legend transposed to ancient Bagdad – but a pleasant diversion nonetheless.

Having watched two of the star's 'oaters' back-to-back (the other was SEA DEVILS [1953]), I can say that he was rather more at ease as an Englishman than an Arab (though he does well enough by the action required here, involving a handful of swordfights and even a jousting[!] contest – which he loses – for the hand of leading lady Piper Laurie). The latter – petite and vivacious – lends some freshness to the mostly familiar proceedings; a similar outing of hers I'd like to revisit someday is THE PRINCE WHO WAS A THIEF (1951) featuring Tony Curtis, another then-rising Universal star who dabbled in actioners (read: potboilers) of every kind during this period.

Anyway, the rest of the cast here is equally creditable: George Macready as the (typically conniving) Grand Vizier, who's eventually revealed to have also ordered the decimation of neighboring Basra (from where Hudson emanates); Samuel Fuller regular Gene Evans as Macready's incompetent son(!) – the old man wants him to marry princess Laurie in order to secure the throne for themselves, but he actually loves her subordinate; Steven Geray as the merchant who first comes into possession of The Golden Blade, and subsequently steers Hudson into fulfilling its destiny (that is, apart from supplying the film's comedy relief); and Edgar Barrier as the reigning Caliph (I've watched him recently in two other exotic ventures for the same studio, namely ARABIAN NIGHTS [1942] and COBRA WOMAN [1944]).

The climax of this compact swashbuckler – running a mere 80 minutes – incorporates a bit of magic (and campiness) as the blade becomes entrenched in the walls of the palace; consequently, a host of muscle-men, inventors and sorcerers are recruited so as to try and dislodge it…but only the dashing hero is able to, the direct result of which is to have the column in question crumble and bury the two villains underneath it! By the way, director Juran would later helm two other (and far more notable) mythical adventures – THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) and JACK THE GIANT KILLER (1962), both of which had the added appeal of stop-motion animated monsters.

This is a tale that comes straight from the "Arabian Nights" compendium. The son "Harum" (Rock Hudson) out to avenge his father murdered at the hands of the evil "Jafar" (George Macready). He must travel to Baghdad where he encounters a feisty young woman "Khairuzan" (Piper Laurie) who is secretly the daughter of the city's caliph - a man also in danger from the menacing ambitions of "Jafar". Luckily, she has a magical golden sword that she gives him to wield. He is invincible! Well he is until someone hits on the idea of swapping his sword for a less effective fake - and soon "Harum" is in a dungeon! Can he escape and save the Caliph and get the girl? Rock Hudson never really cut it for me. Easy enough on the eye, but his characterisations rarely differed from role to role and here he just doesn't really gel with the more charismatic Laurie at all. Plaudits do go to Macready, though - he hams up perfectly as the silken-clad, megalomanic, tyrant. There's plenty of lavish costumes, colour, sword-fighting and at times it's actually quite an entertaining adventure that I did quite enjoy.

The Golden Blade is directed by Nathan Juran and written by John Rich. It stars Rock Hudson, Piper Laurie, Gene Evans & George Macready. Music is by Joseph Gershenson and Technicolor photography by Maury Gertsman.

By Allah! It would be magic, indeed, that this sword were mine at such a time as this.

Colourful, energetic and costumed with skill, The Golden Blade doesn't lack for effort in the low expectation realm of Arabian Nights adventures. Sadly it's actually TOO daft and goofy when it's not meant to be. True enough that it isn't a film to be taken seriously in the first place, and judging by the performances of Laurie and Hudson, the cast are playing it purely for the undemanding popcorn munching crowd. But once over you just get reminded that there are far better films of this type out there and that the interesting premise, a sort of Arabian/Arthurian blend, isn't fully realised. Not enough swishing and swashing of the titular title weapon also annoys greatly. 5/10