The Scarlet Blade

Starring:Oliver Reed, Lionel Jeffries, Jack Hedley

Synopsis:

When King Charles I is captured by Roundhead forces led by the tyrant Colonel Judd and his right-hand man Captain Sylvester, it is up to a band of locals loyal to the King to try and rescue him. They are helped by Judd's daughter Claire who secretly helps them in defiance of her father.

Review:

Like The Brigand of Kandahar , this is one of Hammer’s little-seen films, hidden away for quite a while. An like it’s counterpart, The Scarlet Blade is a colourful, entertaining picture, which suffers from having rather stiff/wooden heroes.

Saving the film is the double act of Lionel Jeffries as Colonel Judd and Oliver Reed as Captain Sylvester. Judd was a royalist sympathiser who decided to defect to Cromwell’s army and rose quickly to power. Sylvester meanwhile is a complete sociopath who seems to just enjoy killing.

Sylvester soon realises that Judd’s daughter Claire is helping the Royalist rebels. He finds her talking to a peasant, but recognises him as a rogue major in disguise, and pulls apart Claire’s excuse that her horse had gone lame. He tells her what he knows, but tells her that he wants to help her, out of love.

She believes him, between the two of them they are able to rescue a royalist sympathiser from being hanged. This brings Sylvester and Claire in contact with Edward Beverly, the so-called Scarlet Blade.

It’s a shame that Beverly is played in such wooden manner by Jack Hedley, and how much better the film would have been if he and Reed had switched roles. Reed has a great time as Sylvester, manipulating all those around him for what seems to be his own amusement rather than any sense of duty or love.

Lionel Jeffries manages to give Colonel Judd some nuance as well. There’s none more committed to a cause than someone who has been converted from their previous beliefs, as if they have more to prove. Judd has that intense zealousness in his actions. He is also completely blind to his daughter’s duplicity.

Verdict:

Oliver Reed saves the film once more, and like The Brigand of Kandahar , The Scarlet Blade heads into an unusual finale.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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