THE SCARLET BLADE
UK, 1963, 83 minutes, Colour.
Lionel Jeffries, Oliver Reed, Jack Hedley, June Thorburn, Michael Ripper.
Directed by John Gilling.
The Scarlet Blade is a story set in the English civil war, the end of the civil war, just prior to the execution of Charles I.
The focus is on a royalist family, the Beverlys, where Edward and his brother Philip have survived the Battle of Preston and are leading a kind of Robin Hood-like group in the forests against the Roundhead forces. These are led by Lionel Jeffries who had turned sides and his lieutenant, Captain Tom Sylvester (Oliver Reed) who had also changed loyalties.
There are the expected actions sequences as well as confrontations between Loyalists and Roundheads as well as romance, betrayal, executions.
The film is entertaining in a matinee kind of way with Lionel Jeffries having a star role as a severe Roundhead. He was soon to make a number of comedies including Two Way Stretch as well as star in Camelot. Oliver Reed was at the beginning of his career and within five and six years was to appear in Oliver in Women in Love.
Writer-director John Gilling had a succession of popular short features alternating between action adventures like The Bandit of Zhobe and The Brigand of Kandahar and horror films like Panic and Trog.
1.Audience knowledge of the English civil war? Charles I and Cromwell? Loyalists and Roundheads? The film interesting without audience knowledge of history?
2.The re-creation of the 17th century, the armed forces, the stately homes and mansions, the aristocracy? The forests? The battles? The atmosphere of the transition from the monarchy to the commonwealth?
3.The title, Edward Beverly and his signature? The rebels in the forest? Their raids? The capture of Edward? The confrontation with Colonel Judd? Sylvester?
4.The Roundhead forces: Colonel Judd, Captain Sylvester, the other officers? Their confronting the Earl of Beverly? Torture, interrogation and execution? Occupying the house? Searching for Charles I? Colonel Judd and his personality, his relationship with his daughter? The plotting with Sylvester? The raids, his reactions? Major Bell and his interrogations? The decisions about the uprising, the confrontation with Edward? Bell and his informing about Sylvester, the confrontation with Sylvester and shooting him? The final attack, Colonel Judd and his accepting his daughter’s rebellion, seeing Edward and Claire as gypsies in the forest, letting them be?
5.Sylvester, the underling, infatuation with Claire, ready to betray sides? His seeming loyalty, supporting Edward, going to meet him? Claire’s rejection, his change of heart, the information, the betrayal? The confrontation with Judd, Judd shooting him?
6.Edward as the hero, his father’s memory, in the forest, his followers, the raids, the derring-do? Philip and his support? Edward being captured, whipped, interrogated? Philip and the attack and his death?
7.Claire, the clash with her father, curtseying to the king? Her plan in helping Loyalists escape? Captain Drury and his help (and Sylvester letting him be)? The falling in love with Edward, helping him, helping him escape?
8.The Beverly family, Philip and his loyalty, their sister, her capture, her being freed?
9.The standard presentation of the armies, the Loyalists and the tradition of the monarchy, Cromwell and his rebellion?
