Steineded How sad is this?

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

J. Theakston The plot: During the era of the Crusades, Ricardo Montalban plays an Italian peasant who gains favor of the king and works his way up to knight in order to avenge the death of his father.THE SARACEN BLADE should work, but it doesn't. It's hampered at all ends-- the script isn't incompetent, but is uninspired and predictable. The dialog and performances jog between "old English" to modern-day soap opera. The cast is uneven, and nary a one of them is Italian, where the majority of the film is set-- indeed, England would have been a more convincing location location given the plot. Carolyn Jones and Betta St. John are pleasing to look at, but totally out of place and are better used in many other films of this period.Henry Freulich's wide-screen cinematography is colorful, and the set design and costuming reflect this accordingly, but the lighting and camera-work is flat.The exteriors are unconvincing, often doubling the rocky California countryside for rural Italy as well as the Middle East, and during an attack on a castle, the night-tinted stock footage is painfully unconvincing in black and white, inter-cut with the Technicolor footage shot for the picture.The blame rests on the always cheap producer Sam Katzman and in-over-his-head William Castle, a director that I admire, but who was clearly more comfortable in westerns and cleverly-written contemporary pictures than costume dramas.This was screened for me in a theatrical setting (35mm) in the last month, and doesn't seem to be available in any television package at this point (TCM seems to have struck a deal with Sony, so you may see it on their channel).While I may be over-critical on what is nothing more than what would have been the "B" feature on a double bill in its time, I also doubt it's noteworthy enough to end up on DVD unless it's part of a Montalban set. No loss, as while this would have played in its day as a time-passer on the lower half of a double bill, out of this context today, it's just a mediocre time waster.

m Forget about Rambo,James Bond Van Damme etc. this is a truly fascinating and high action film made before fancy special effects and stunt men.Ricardo does all his own stunt-work including deft sword fighting,fancy fist work and horsemanship skills.He also shows a tender side to the hero not unequalled by Olivier or even Bogart. The final sword-fight scene including the sudden death of the dastardly evil enemy "The Siniscolas Brothers" rivals the brilliant performance of Sir Lancalot's John Cleese.Unfortunately this film did not earn him an academy award and I recommend this film to lovers of fast action and Monty Python films.

dinky-4 Frank Yerby's novel could easily have been turned into one of those sweeping, sprawling, big-budget epics -- such as Tyrone Power's "The Black Rose." Instead it emerged as a 76-minute bottom-half-of-the-double-bill feature starring Ricardo Montalban. The results are disappointingly thin but, on the other hand, there's a modest, unpretentious quality at work here which makes the movie easy to watch.Here's an example of the Grade-B dialog. Carolyn Jones says to Ricardo Montalban: "My cousin, Iolanthe, has probably given you her lips." To which he replies: "So? They are her lips." Montalban serves as an easy-to-like hero. At one point, he's stripped to the waist and forced to hug a palm tree as he's flogged across the back. (This scene ranks 94th in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.") Meanwhile, in "Queen of Babylon," he's stripped to the waist and bound to a wall so that he can be flogged across the chest. Does this make Montalban, along with Steve Reeves, the only leading man in the movies to get both a back whipping and a chest whipping?

Marta Ricardo Montalban was the perfect choice for the role of Pietro. Passionate and handsome, he can show anger and righteous zeal one minute and his tender feelings for Iolanthe, his true love, the next, despite the formidable odds against them. He needed all the anger he could muster, since his own father was beheaded by his true love's father, the cruel overlord of the region where Pietro was born, in medieval Italy. He spends most of the film trying to wreak vengeance on Iolanthe's family while trying to rescue her from their evil clutches.Frank Yerby's novel of the same name is one of my favorites, and if you find it it's worth the read. Much more detailed than the film.William Castle seems an odd choice for directing this kind of film, but this was one of the last normal films he did before he embarked on his famous horror film streak. Don't miss Combat!'s Rick Jason in the role of one of Iolanthe's evil brothers.