Cheap Magic Sword (Video) (Bert I. Gordon) Price

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Customer Reviews of Magic Sword

The FIRST Dungeons and Dragons adventure!
This film, intended for kids, was a movie house favorite back in the 1960's. A handsome young man in love with the princess of his land takes on the quest to save her after she is kidnapped by an evil magician. There is some wonderful stuff here. A witch mother with a two headed servant, a special sword, armor and steed intended for Sir George when he reached manhood and a group of famous knights as companions for the quest who are from all over Europe. There is also some great campish humor in this film, especially when the "French" knight is drawn away by a pretty damsel singing in french and when he attempts to kiss her she turns into a horrible one eyed-monster, and upon being saved by Sir George he states: "I should have realized that such a beautiful woman would not be up so early in the morning!" The film also features silly ogres who throw logs like nine pins but get dizzy and fall over from watching a horse run in circles, the usual servant/sinister midgets who seem to terrify people by just standing around holding up their clenched hands and laughing mockingly,vaporous pools of death that knights on horseback seem to automatically lose their balance and fall into to die, caves full of ghostly witches that only the faith of an Irishman can confront and a genuinely good Dragon full of fire breathing fury at the end that is killed by our hero as he is about to feed on our princess. Classic stuff, darkly filmed in spots but deserves to be recognized as perhaps one of the earliest "questing" movies that a lot of fantasy minded gamers and movie makers were to benefit from some 35 years later.

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SWORDS AND SORCERY
When watching a movie like "The Magic Sword", you have to smile at the camp and amateurism that often frequents a film like this. Bert I. Gordon did his first color movie with this one, and for the time it was made, the special effects are above average for this time. The dragon is hilarious; as are the conehead ripoffs. But, Estelle Winwood, what a wonderfully zany actress she was, and she steals the movie whenever she's on. Gary Lockwood, undeniably a hunk, is not the world's greatest actor here, although he went on to gain respect in the t.v. series, "The Lieutenant" and the movie, "2001." Anne Helm looks lovely but no more range than a Barbie Doll. Basil Rathbone is effectively hammy in his role as Lodac the evil sorcerer. One question though: they were supposed to encounter seven curses, I missed one somewhere?
Cheesy but enjoyable.

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Cheesy rescue the princess from the sorcerer's dragon movie
Apparently Ray Harryhausen's big success with "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" inspired all sorts of sword and sorcery epics (filmed in Cinemascope). Case in point would be this 1962 film, "The Magic Sword," a three-word title that makes the S&S genre perfectly clear. The film is directed and co-written by Bert I. Gordon, who gave us "The Cyclops," "The Amazing Colossal Man," and "Earth vs. the Spider," and actually ends up being one of his better efforts, helped, no doubt, by the money put into the film for color and special effects. But keep in mind that the rest of those films are really bad. "The Magic Sword" also stars the aging Basil Rathbone as the sorcerer, Lodac, and the young Gary Lockwood of "2001" fame as the hero, Sir George. Rathbone does well when he appears on screens, but the rest of the cast is not up to his level and the special effects are average at best (although the dragon at the end is the best of the bunch).

The story is by the numbers for this genre. Sir George has been raised by a witch named Sybil (Estelle Windwood), and has used her magic to spy on the beautiful Princess Helene (Anne Helm). She ends up being abducted by Lodac who plans to feed her to the aforementioned dragon. When the King (Merritt Stone) does the old bit about who ever rescues his daughter gets her hand in marriage, Sir George is off on his quest to the evil sorcerer's castle. Our hero is aided and abetted by six knights that he restores from being petrified. This is good because they have to face seven curses from Lodac and having seven knights makes it sound fair but we all know this is going to get down to just--ALL TOGETHER NOW--Sir George and the Dragon. Along the way Gordon to throw all sorts of witches, ogres, helpful little people, and the like at our band of heroes. I am sorry I missed it when "The Magic Sword" played on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" because this film is a natural for that venue. Still, this cheesy film can be enjoyed as such without the silhouetted talking heads.