The Gallant Blade

A low-budget but worthy companion to "The Three Musketeers", "The Gallant Blade" moves at a brisk pace and has enough plot and derring-do to hold interest throughout. The performances are uniformly good and it is quite a surprise to see George MacReady, who usually plays the dastardly villain, in a venerable and heroic role. But Victor Jory is on hand to supply all the dastardliness and treachery one could want. Marguerite Chapman is the spirited female agent in the toils of Jory, who honestly believes she is serving the cause of France until she's informed of the true designs of Jory. Though I have only seen this film in black and white, I suspect it would be even more effective if viewed in the original color. It's a good-natured period adventure, the kind that is seldom made anymore. Most viewers who enjoy swashbucklers will be pleased with this film, as well as with "The Swordsman" an equally satisfying film in the same genre made the same year and with several of the same cast members.

What's probably most remarkable about this standard swashbuckler is that for a change George Macready isn't actually the baddie! Don't worry, we find that out almost immediately as his boss (Victor Jory) decides that the best way to defuse a worryingly noisy French population was to give them someone else to hate. To that end, he orders his general "Cadeau" (Macready) to invade Spain. He's not so keen on following orders, so together with his loyal lieutenant "Picard" (Larry Parks) sets off to change some minds. Along the way, the encounter the glamorous "Nanon" (Marguerite Chapman) who takes a bit of a shine to the young man and who also happens to be the lady love of the war-mongering marshal. Once they arrive in Paris, it's conspiracies galore and it quickly falls to the young man to try to save the day, the general and get the gal! Sure, it is all old hat that has borrowed plenty from other films, but Parks is an amiable hero who works well with both Chapman and Macready; there is plenty of swordplay and there's even a special ring. You'll never remember it, but it's a lively eighty minutes that I quite enjoyed.

And that's not so better than if it was produced by the "infamous" Katzman. OK, watch it just as as poor man's THREE MUSKETEERS. Columbia pictures will provide many of this kind, not only Universal Studios. THE SWORDMAN, from director Joseph H Lewis and also starring Larry Parks, is also more or less as this one. Don't forget too, from Columbia Pictures: THE FIGHTING GUARDSMAN, RETURN OF MONTE CRISTO. And William Castle will also make many of adventure, costume adventures, but not a Musketeer's like film though. Any period of "history" but not this one, as far as I remember. This is a shame not watch it in the genuine Cinecolor, but Cinecolor movies is hard to find else than black and white. Agreeable cloak and dagger - swashbuckler costume action flick. Nothing else. And notice that finding a swashbuckler film from Columbia Pictures without George Mc Ready in the late forties, is like finding a western without a horse or a gun.