Film Review
After having collaborated on two successful historical romps,
Ivanhoe (1952) and
Knights of the Round Table (1953),
director Richard Thorpe and actor Robert Taylor completed the hat trick
with this feisty adaptation of Walter Scott's 1823 novel
Quentin Durward. Beautifully
photographed in widescreen colour and boasting an exceptional cast of
fine British actors, the film has much to commend it, although its main
selling point is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. With
some impressive location work at castles in France and England,
Quentin Durward is a prestige
production that showcases British cinema at its flashiest in the
mid-1950s.
The film bristles with humour from start to finish, but it still
manages to be an exciting swashbuckler, packed with superbly
well-choreographed action scenes. With almost breathtaking ease,
Robert Morley steals the film as the calculating Louis XI, showing that
the Age of Chivalry is well and truly dead as he concocts various
underhand schemes to save his reputation and prevent a costly
war. (We soon see why Louis XI has been dubbed the Spider
King.) At the mid-point of his career, Hollywood star Robert
Taylor positively revels in the kind of role that Errol Flynn had
virtually monopolised in previous decades. Meanwhile, the
exquisite Kay Kendall is at her most radiant and vivacious as a French
countess with a mind of her own and the guts to use it. The
distinguished supporting cast drips with talent and charisma, and
includes such familiar names as Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ernest Thesiger and
Marius Goring (
The Red Shoes),
with George Cole making the greatest impact as a comedy
gypsy with an uncanny resemblance to his Arthur Daley character in
the television series
Minder. Of the
numerous swashbucklers that erupted onto the big screen in the 1950s,
Quentin Durward is assuredly one of
the best made and most enjoyable.
© James Travers 2012
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In 1465, the impecunious Scottish knight Quentin Durward travels to
France to determine whether the Countess Isabelle of Marcroy will make
a suitable bride for his aged uncle. The marriage has been
arranged by the Duke of Burgundy to from a lasting alliance with
Scotland. Aware that her intended husband is an old man, Isabelle
takes flight and puts herself under the protection of the King of
France, Louis XI. Quentin pursues her and manages to inveigle his
way into the king's confidence. Fearing that a rift with Burgundy
will lead to an all-out war that France can ill afford, the king
conceives a fiendish plan that will deliver Isabelle into the hands of
the notorious brigand Count William de La Marck...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.