Bandido Romântico

Not a bad B-movie starring Louis Hayward as the famous highwayman. Hayward is perfectly fine and the script is decent, but the film loses it's way storywise at halfway mark. Not enough action and the story slides to an anticlimatic ending. Nice period sets and good cast keep film interesting even when story has run it's course. Plenty of horse riding shots (mostly in the dark) and robberies but film needed a better story. Maybe other aspects of Turpin story could have been used? I enjoyed it though, not bad little movie😊 Question: why does Turpin wear a mask when everybody seems to know who he is😂 Oh and Black Beds fell down twice, needs to change her hooves me thinks🤔

Dick Turpin in the person of Louis Hayward is grown tired of being a highwayman. He retires to become a gentleman, despite having no idea of how to do so. But money talks, and he gets to marry Patricia Medina. But when mother-in-law Barbara Brown discovers who he really is, she is aghast. But money is money.

Still, Hayward has some ambitions, like vengeance on Alan Mowbray, so he rides 200 miles.

Nominally based on Alfred Noyes' long poem "Dick Turpin's Ride" this falls into the category of those movies that will make sense to people who already know the story, but be a boring mass of shots for those who do not. Hayward is still dashing, and Miss Medina is startling in her beauty. Otherwise it's pseud-historical piffle with a couple of decent sword fights and a self-important score by George Duning.

Dick Turpin's is one of those legends that should have fitted nicely with Louis Hayward's style of swashbuckling heroics. Plenty of opportunity to rob the wealthy that travel the as yet un-policed roads of 1730s England. Sadly, though, Ralph Murphy chooses to focus more on the romantic elements of his roguish subject and we are left with a rather slow moving melodrama. After one of his hold-ups, he meets and falls in love with "Joyce" (Patricia Medina), settles down to middle-class inn-keeping for a while before he goes back to his old ways with friend Tom King (Tom Tully). That's when he robs "Lord Willoughby" (Alan Mowbray) and relieves him of a document proving the existence of treason afoot - the price on his head rockets and his jealous friend "Cecile" (Suzanne Dalbert) sets about betraying him too. At times it is quite exciting - his break-neck race to York on "Black Bess", for example - but otherwise this just plods along with neither of the leading ladies having much on-screen charisma, nor dialogue to work with. Mowbray features sparingly as his foe and the direction is just, well, lacking... Hayward does try, but he has lost the glint from his eye and can't carry this all by himself as entertainingly he once could. I hadn't heard of this film before today, but after watching I'm afraid I am not really surprised.

The main character in this story, Dick Turpin, was a real criminal who was hung for his many infamous deeds back in the 18th century. For some reason, and I have no idea why, but the sociopathic criminal's exploits have been fictionalized and his image has been changed to a sort of noble thief...like Robin Hood...although steal from the rich and gave to himself! But be aware...Turpin was likely a murderer and career criminal...not some handsome lady's man as you'll see in this movie. In many ways, this is like the way old west criminals have been turned into heroes in B-movies...much like Billy the Kid and Jesse James...who were scum in real life.

Louis Hayward plays the title character, which makes sense because they were trying to portray Turpin as an urbane man. He also, oddly, is some sort of hero...something you'd never associate with the real Turpin.

Turpin meets a lovely lady and decides to live a happy, law-abiding life. However, when his true identity is exposed, he resumes his old life...and soon uncovers evidence that someone is plotting against the King. And, since he's supposed to be all nice and heroic, he rushes to save the day...hizzah!

It's best to just divorce yourself from the image of the real Dick Turpin. It's mostly fiction and as such it is entertaining. Hayward is his usual self and the film is enjoyable though at times a bit stilted.

After one of his hold-ups, Dick Turpin (Louis Hayward) meets and falls in love with "Joyce" (Patricia Medina), settles down to inn-keeping for a while before going back to his old ways. That's when he robs "Lord Willoughby" (Alan Mowbray) and relieves him of a document proving the existence of treason afoot - the price on his head rockets and his jealous friend "Cecile" (Suzanne Dalbert) sets about betraying him too.

Louis Hayward is my favourite swashbuckler, the most aristocratic one with a glint in the eye and an abundance of style and wit and nifty movement with an epee, however he looks tired here and there's not so much a glint in the eye- perhaps because he's playing a highwayman and not a "hero". Still he's performs well enough as the man who is trapped in the life of crime and can't come out of it and the plot keeps thing boiling along. There's some moments of excitement- shootouts, galloping horses and coaches - before lapsing into melodrama and chatter. Patricia Medina gets the heart palpitating.