Capitaine Scarlett

"Following the defeat of Napoleon, France was in a state of unrest. Many of the Royalists who had fled to England returned to exact vengeance for their real and fancied wrongs. Some turned the situation to their personal advantage...becoming Tyrants and Petty Dictators...."

Set in France but filmed in Mexico, Captain Scarlett is a hum-drum swashbuckler short on thrills, spills and originality of story. Richard Greene stars as the titular Scarlett, who sets about righting wrongs as he gathers supporters and catches the eyes of the babes. It's a sort of low rent Robin Hood, the Gallic version, Greene is dandy as usual, the costuming pleasing and with it running at just 75 minutes it moves along fast enough and doesn't outstay its welcome. But it's all pretty stale and way down on the list of swashbucklers to see before you die. 4/10

I fear that other reviewers have failed to recognize this movie for what it is: a fine example of a 1950s Saturday afternoon double feature film. The principal actors are obviously enjoying themselves, and we should too. Yes, there's lots of filler, yes much is predicable. That's why I just relaxed and enjoyed it. Here's an analogy from another movie: Errol Flynn is in Queen Elizabeth's castle. An enormous piece of dark cloth hangs on a bare stone wall near the top of a steep stone stairway. The cloth serves no purpose that an Elizabethan interior decorator would accept. A few scenes later, Mr. Flynn is about to descend these stairs when he sees three miscreants with drawn swords waiting for him. What does Mr. Flynn do? Why he grabs hold of that cloth, swings down upon those extras, and …

Besides, as a student of history I learned several things about France after Napoleon's defeat. Day and night switched back and forth unpredictably. As one was pursued by horsemen this might happen several times during a single pursuit. Small orchestras accompanied these horsemen but never interfered with the pursuit. (This, of course, was also true in the Old West, but Restoration France's orchestras were slightly larger.) Clothing never got dirty, even though one wore it day after day. Expensive seeming scarlet (a.k.a. scarlett) cloaks were so readily available that at least six of them could be lent to local villagers who sought to imitate our hero. As is still sadly true, men (well, one man … our hero) pursued women who never would become properly submissive wives and whose conversation would cease to be interesting after a very few years. Men who had pistols usually forwent their use in order to fight each other with dueling swords. (For some reason this wise practice didn't continue in the Old West, despite that one almost never hit anyone no matter how many shots one fired at them from Old West pistols, whereas with a trusty sword …)

Internet Archive offers this film free. As a still-loyal member of ABCDEFGHI, I recommend it for late-evening viewing. ("What's this alphabet stuff?" American Boys Concerned to Defend Errol Flynn's Good Honorable Intentions, that's what!)

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.

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.

I really do not know if the commentator who gave this joint of ham 10/10 had seen the same film as the rest of us or was indulging in a strong piece of "ironic narrative". My views accord mostly with the comments of all the other reviewers. Richard Greene makes a passable central figure/hero, (in fact, given the time the film was made - just three years before Greene began the long-running British TV series, "The Adventures of Robin Hood", starring in the central role himself, of course, - I felt at times that I was almost watching a 'dress rehearsal' for the TV series and wondering if there was any connection between the two, e.g. did Lew Grade's talent scouts see this film and think of Greene for the green tights role as a result?)Unlike another commentator, I also found the sword fight scenes quite well done, (again conjuring up visions of 'Robin Greene' swashbuckling with the Sheriff of Nottingham's 'baddies'), and the Technicolour could not be any 'lusher' at all. That is as far as it goes, though. The 'plot', (if you can find it), is less than you would have got in any weekly comic of the period, the rest of the acting is somewhere between insipid and atrocious and, in particular, the music score must be one of the worst ever composed/inflicted on a cinema audience. A shame, really. Some improvements in any of the latter regards would have made the film reasonably enjoyable and worth a second viewing. On the other hand, if someone worse than Greene had been in the lead, it would have had a very good chance indeed of being rated as a truly toe-curling, cringe-inducing 'Golden Turkey' of all time. As it is, one for viewing while ironing on a windy winter afternoon and then forgetting.