Black Gate

This article contains minor spoilers for Masters of the Universe: Revelation.

Our mighty Eternian hero and his celebrated motley crew of bouncing and shooting heroes did not originate as the beloved moral wielding Filmation show (aka marketing campaign) of the 80s. His origins are much more concrete than animation cells, mired in plastic and slime. Before he uttered the words “By the Power of Grayskull” on TV to throngs of enthused children, he first held up a plastic Power Sword in his molded toy hand.

Well, half a Power Sword.

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El Cid (USA/Italy, 1961)

“Inspired by historical events”: the dreaded phrase that history wonks have come to learn usually means “bears little resemblance to historical events.” But hey, historical epics have to start somewhere, and it might as well be with a little history. To be fair, historical adventure film concepts often start from the best available accounts, but then scripts get rewritten and rewritten again, producers and directors have their own ideas about how the screenplay should get visualized, and before you know it you’ve got… well, El Cid (1961) for one, with a couple of other examples as well, including an admirable entry in The 300 Spartans (1962), which tries harder than most to get it right. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.

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Zatoichi’s Vengeance (Japan, 1966)

The Zatoichi films, a chambara series that features Shintaro Katsu as a blind yakuza swordsman, was very popular in Japan, running throughout the Sixties and totaling 19 films in quick succession, followed less rapidly by a final half-dozen “special” entries. Though the films in the series tend to follow a familiar formula, they are successful because the elements of that formula are a rich mixture of suspense, pathos, action, comedy, and wistful romance. Katsu’s Zatoichi is a blind masseur at the lowest level of Shogunate Japan’s social hierarchy, but he deeply resents the abuse he suffers from his social betters, and his preternaturally keen senses enable him to develop the skills of a sleight-of-hand gambler and, more importantly, a lightning-fast swordsman. A master of iaijutsu, or the slash on the draw, Ichi holds his blade in a reverse grip that is lethally effective when he gets inside the guard of those wielding longer katanas. He also has a lightning wit that enables him to suss out plots and conspiracies from a few overheard clues. Best of all, though he has a temper, Ichi is inherently good-hearted and always comes to the aid of the vulnerable suffering at the hands of their abusers.

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The Viking Queen (UK, 1967)

Though by 1967 the Hammer Films brand was thoroughly associated with Dracula and similar horrors, the studio stubbornly continued to turn out films in other genres, including historical swashbucklers. Our first film, The Viking Queen, definitely has that sensational Hammer touch, but A Challenge for Robin Hood could almost be a Disney film, which shows late-Sixties Hammer productions could still have a considerable tonal range.

Admittedly, our third movie, Alfred the Great, isn’t from Hammer Films, but hey, it’s British and from the same period, and it’s worth a look, so give me a break, okay?

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The Three Musketeers miniseries (UK, 1966)

At last! Because you demanded it. (I’m pretty sure that happened,) Finally, the subject everyone wants an article about, French Swashbuckler Tales Adapted for British Television! I know, right?

In the Sixties, one of the BBC’s stocks in trade was popular literature adapted into mini-series of six to sixteen half-hour episodes, usually shown on Sunday afternoons. In this context, Alexandre Dumas worked well for them: they’d had such success with The Count of Monte Cristo that they went back to the Dumas well twice more with his musketeers, and then picked up and dubbed a French serial called Le Chevalier Tempête set in the same period. En garde, old boy!

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