Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood, 1922

Swashbuckler films are a subgenre of the action film genre, characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often follow a code of honour. Some swashbuckler films have romantic elements, most frequently a damsel in distress. Both real and fictional historical events often feature prominently in the plot.

History

Right from the advent of cinema, the silent era was packed with swashbucklers. The most famous of those were the films of Douglas Fairbanks, such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), which defined the genre. The stories came from romantic costume novels, particularly those of Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini. Stirring music was also an important part of the formula.[1] The three great cycles of swashbuckler films were the Douglas Fairbanks period from 1920 to 1929; the Errol Flynn period from 1935 to 1941; and a period in the 1950s heralded by films such as Ivanhoe (1952) and The Master of Ballantrae (1953), and the popularity of the British television series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1959).[2] Richard Lester's Dumas adaptations revived the genre in the 1970s.[3]

Swashbucklers

The term "swashbuckler" originates from boisterous fighters who carried a sword and buckler (a small shield).[4] "Swashbuckler" was a putdown, used to indicate a poor swordsman who covered his lack of skill with noise, bragging, and clamour. Novels, and then Hollywood, altered the word's connotation to make the swashbuckler the hero of the plotline.[1]

Jeffrey Richards describes the genre as very stylized. The hero is one who "maintains a decent standard of behavior, fights for King and Country, believes in truth and justice, defends the honour of lady".[5] Though these can be regarded as the values of a knight, the setting may fall anywhere between the 11th and 19th centuries.

Fencing

Fencing is an essential element of the genre, and a dramatic duel is invariably a pivotal part of the storyline. Famous fencing instructors came from the ranks of successful competitors, and included Henry Uyttenhove, Fred Cavens, Jean Heremans, Ralph Faulkner, and Bob Anderson.[6]

Musical scores

  • Erich Wolfgang Korngold won the 1938 Academy Award for his score to The Adventures of Robin Hood. The 1935 Captain Blood was nominated for Music (Scoring); in 1940 The Sea Hawk was nominated for best Original Score. Korngold was known for his late Romantic compositional style and assigning each character his or her own leitmotif.
  • Alfred Newman wrote the scores for: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro, and the 1942 The Black Swan (nominated for Best Original Score). The 1940 film of The Mark of Zorro was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Original Score.
  • Dimitri Tiomkin scored Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). According to film historian David Wallace, "His trademarks, huge, noisy cues, propulsive adventure themes that seemingly employed every brass instrument ever invented, and melting, emotionally wrought melodies accompanying romantic scenes also became the stock-in trade of just about every film composer since."[7]
  • Hans Zimmer scored the Pirates of the Caribbean series, reinventing the swashbuckler musical style.

Television

Television followed the films.

British television production in the genre was prolific, headlined by The Adventures of Robin Hood, which produced 143 episodes by 1959 and became an outstanding success both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Other popular series included The Buccaneers (1956–1957), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956–1957), Sword of Freedom (1958), The Adventures of William Tell (1958), The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (ITV, 1956), ITC's The Count of Monte Cristo (ITV, 1956), and George King's The Gay Cavalier (ITV, 1957), Quentin Durward (Studio Canal, 1971), Robin of Sherwood (ITV, 1984–1986), and Sharpe (ITV, since 1993).

American television produced two series of Zorro (1957 and 1990). Following the film The Mask of Zorro (1998), a television series about a female swashbuckler, Queen of Swords, aired in 2000.[8]

The Spanish television series Águila Roja (Red Eagle), aired from 2009 to 2016, is an example of the swashbuckler genre.[9]

Italian and German televisions produced several series of Sandokan.

Notable films

Films with swashbuckler elements that can be considered precursors to the cinematic genre:

The Count of Monte Cristo (1908)
Robin Hood and His Merry Men (1912)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1913)
The Three Musketeers (1916)
Kidnapped (1917)

Notable actors and actresses

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Foster on Film.
  2. ↑ Screen Online.
  3. ↑ "Hoad, Phil. "Making Waves: In Praise of the Swashbuckler", The Guardian, 1 August 2003
  4. ↑ Embleton, Gerry A.; Howe, John (1994). The Medieval Soldier – 15th Century Campaign Life Recreated in Colour Photographs. London: Windrow and Green. ISBN 978-1-859-15036-8.
  5. ↑ Richards, Jeffrey. Swordsmen of the Screen, Routledge, 2014 ISBN 9781317928638
  6. ↑ Classical Fencing.
  7. ↑ Wallace, David; Miller, Ann. Hollywoodland, Macmillan, (2002) pp. 193-194
  8. ↑ "Swashbuckling Women of Movies, TV, Theatre, etc". Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Fox takes 'Red Eagle' in Spain". Variety. August 13, 2010.
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