Brits Bring “Black Shield of Falworth” to BluRay

As I’ve noted in columns over the past few months, 2009 has been a notable year for BluRay technology—its adoption by consumers, its decreasing prices, and especially for its greatly expanded selection of titles available. Unfortunately, there are a substantial number of interesting films released to BluRay that are not for sale in North America, but can be found in Europe. Many are region-locked and need a special player to view them, but quite a few are region-free, including some American classics released by the British Eureka video label.

Especially notable recent releases are F. W. Murnau’s all-time classic “Sunrise” (1927), the only film ever to win an Oscar for “artistic quality of production,” and the sometimes campy medieval family adventure, “The Black Shield of Falworth” (1954), Universal Pictures’ very first film in the new CinemaScope widescreen format. These can easily be ordered online through Amazon.co.uk (and anyone with an existing Amazon account does not need to open a new account to order from England). Orders typically arrive within a week of shipping, often faster than U.S. orders.

A few days before Christmas, I had a couple of people over to watch “The Black Shield of Falworth” (1954) on the new Eureka BluRay (preceded by a standard DVD of a Universal cartoon, “Convict Concerto,” a well-above-average Woody Woodpecker title released to theatres a couple of months after the feature). We all found both the short and feature quite entertaining. My guests were amazed at the clarity of the 8-foot-wide CinemaScope picture, commenting that the textures were so vivid it was “like you could reach out and pet the horses!”

The opening titles are a little soft in the center but the rest of the film is consistently crisp, except for the few seconds before and after any optical transition like a dissolve or fade (a property of the duping process used for transitions by almost all films of that era). Colors are very strong, not quite as rich as 1940s Technicolor, but still well-saturated, especially the night scenes.

Unfortunately Universal did not use the original 4-track magnetic stereo soundtrack, but the optical mono track used for the BluRay is very good quality and was likely heard in many theatres.

Rudolph Maté‘s “The Black Shield of Falworth” is a classic example of a major studio period adventure movie that seems aimed primarily at the Saturday-matinee audience of 1950s kids (especially boys about 8-12), with enough tongue-in-cheek dialogue, action-intrigue, and production values to appeal to adult viewers and win broad family audiences.

Rather harshly treated by many serious critics of the era and afterwards, the film has remained largely underrated except by a core of fans of medieval swashbucklers, and oddly never got an official DVD release in the U.S. Amazon is still selling old VHS copies of the “fullscreen” version at prices from $30-$50, yet the brand new BluRay from Amazon.co.uk was only $16 plus shipping!

The young Tony Curtis takes a while to warm up in the role, but does just fine for the most part as a late teen/early 20-something boy raised as a peasant, who trains to be a knight and learns he’s really the son of a knight who had been unjustly condemned for treason so a rival could seize his property. 

All of this is going on during the reign of Henry IV (Ian Keith), with a major subplot of that same villain’s plot to get rid of the apparently dissolute future Henry V (Dan O’Herlihy) and seize the throne. Meanwhile, of course, impetuous Tony meets and falls for Janet Leigh, daughter of his noble patron Herbert Marshall. A very pretty Barbara Rush plays Curtis’ sister.

It may actually be the script and direction as much as Curtis’s acting that take a while to get going (or at least for the audience to become accustomed to).  The first half-hour or so of the film, with the right crowd of people, could easily be viewed as high camp of “Rocky Horror” proportions, just begging for audience members to talk back to the characters or recite lines in unison. It’s hard to believe the screenwriter didn’t know how laughable some of the early dialogue exchanges were and may well have done it intentionally to entertain parents who may have accompanied their kids (who would take everything seriously).

Once Curtis gets into his military training, however, the plotting becomes more involved, the acting improves, the film picks up in pace considerably, and it remains highly enjoyable despite the predictable melodrama through its conclusion. Torin Thatcher is great as the crusty one-eyed Sir James, Curtis’ medieval drill-sergeant. It’s no “Adventures of Robin Hood” by any means, but it’s all a lot of good clean Hollywood fun from the days before bloody decapitations became the norm for historical action films. 

“The Black Shield of Falworth” is also very nice to look at for its effective use of the full width of its CinemaScope frame in almost every single shot.  It may be way too overlit in all of the interior shots (the standard Hollywood style of the 50s and 60s), but it’s always meticulously composed on the screen. The art direction is quite respectable, and much more noticeable in high definition (and some of the decorative little pennants on the horses certainly look like they’re made of plastic!).

The BluRay looks and sounds very impressive, despite no “restoration” being apparent. The original print had been kept in pristine condition. Unfortunately, there are absolutely no extra features on the disc, unless you consider chapter stops as a bonus. The copyright warning, unlike the ominous red-background U.S. text screens, is simple white letters on black and its wording is quaintly civil, entreating viewers not to copy the film if they value having more movies like this being made available.

The Black Shield of Falworth - BluRay at a Glance:
Movie: B
Video: A+
Audio: A-
Extras: F+

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