The Golden Blade 1953 Story by John Rich, screenplay by John Rich and William R Cox, directed by Nathan Juran. William was also the producer of the film, he mostly worked in TV, this was his first feature and he's listed on the IMDb as uncredited.
Nathan spent much of his later career directing TV on shows like My Friend Flicka, A Man Called Shenandoah, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, The Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Land Of The Giants and Daniel Boone. He directed a few films that were of interest to me. His first film was The Black Castle and it was darn good. Some of my other favorites: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, The First Men In The Moon, The Brian From Planet Arous and 20 Million Miles To Earth.
The Golden Blade is set in ancient Bagdad. I enjoy the occasional Arabian Night sort of story, they're usually bright and colorful, there's some action and running about, a villain is thwarted and the hero gets the girl. Rock Hudson is the hero, he's the son of a sheik of Basra, he returns home to find his dying father, stabbed by some men in a raid. He finds a clue in a medallion and sets out for Bagdad for some revenge. Piper Laurie is the daughter of the Caliph, George Macready is the Vizier, Gene Evens is the Vizier's son. The Vizier has a lust for power, he's responsible for the raid on Basra, he wants to install Gene as the new Caliph. Some stabbing is going to need to be done.
Rock meets Piper in the shop of a merchant and it's there that the magical Golden Sword comes into his hands. It can cut through steel for the right person. Knowing Piper puts her and Rock in jail and he winds up being her body guard. She manipulates Rock and Gene into a fight for her hand. Gene finds out about the sword and steals it from Rock. Rock eventually comes to find out that Gene and the Vizier are the scumbags that need killing and a bit fight breaks out in the palace. The Caliph is killed, Gene is the new Caliph, Rock and Piper go on the run. The Golden Sword gets stuck in a wall and no one can pull it out except Rock. Some baddies get stabbed and there's a happy ending.
It's fun and a bit goofy with a good cast. The script is the weakest link, it's a bit Arabian Knight and a bit King Arthur, some of the dialog makes me laugh. I still liked it well enough to order up the DVD, it's part of 5 Rock Hudson film pack that was only a tenner on Amazon. Five movies on three discs, better than some collections. There's a DVDr Archive version for 20 bucks and a Kino Lorber Blu-ray 3 film set for $24. I liked the movie selection on the DVD set better than the Blue-ray set, as well as the cheaper price.
Devil Story 1986 Written and directed by Bernard Launois.
The movie opens with a series of murders by a deformed man in a Nazi uniform. A woman is attacked by a cat but it seems to be in her mind. They stop for the night at the mansion of an old couple. They tell them a tale of crashed ship many years in the past. The wife is attacked by the deformed man and his mother. The mother is killed and the wife escapes. The old man from the mansion blames a black horse and spends much of the movie in a field shooting his shotgun over and over again. Then a mummy shows up and the crashed ship comes out of the cliff face.
It just goes on and on, piling one plot device on another, never seeming to care if they make sense or work together. Poor Bernard needed the help of a more experienced writer and director to make this film. Sadly he didn't get the help he needed. It was good at making us laugh and it's short. I wouldn't need to see it again so I'm not going to buy the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.
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