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THE SWASHBUCKLERS by James Robert & Don E. Stanke Parish

THE SWASHBUCKLERS

By

Pub Date: June 16th, 1976
Publisher: Arlington House

A film retrospective of swaggering swordsmen in buckled boots, The Swashbucklers focuses on the careers of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Ronald Colman, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Stewart Granger, Victor Mature, Cornel Wilde, and Tony Curtis, none of whom were heavy acting talents. (Colman was a suave professional who could deliver sensitive lines such as ""Doris dear, don't you see what you are doing? I do."") Perhaps only Mature lacked the bouncy insouciance that Fairbanks struck as the keynote to true swashing (when Hedy Lamarr complained that Mature upstaged her in Samson and Delilah, C. B. De Mille mollified her: ""Do you think there are any men in America who would rather look at his face than your ass?"") Of Fairbanks an early director commented, ""It fatigued me even to look at him sitting down--and he seldom sat."" The bulk of the book is devoted not to derring-do but runthroughs of the stars' filmographies--very few of them were wholly identified with costume flicks that gave them a chance to show their knees. Though the authors skim, they usually succeed in exhibiting each star at his satisfying best.