Powerful

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Chivalry was a popular movie theme concept at the beginning of the fifties. "Ivanhoe" produced by MGM was a huge box-office success, and I suppose all studios wanted to make cash on it at this time. It gave us "Knights of the round table", "Prince Valiant", etc. The result here is not the best you could have setting the story in the XVth century England, because the elements of the script are too traditional (some would write cliché) to have a very exciting show. After the first 15 minutes of the movie you're actually able to predict the fate of all the characters, no matter they are good, bad, or ugly. Does it mean "The black shield of Falworth" is an annoying movie ? Hell no, especially if you're under 14. The classical components of the script (young and pretty heroes, very very unpleasant baddies, action, treason, climax and final victory of honor and justice) are well managed, the dialogs and situations, if predictable, are quite entertaining. I know that because I watched it for the first time on videotape in 1994 (time passes, yes), and wasn't disappointed watching it yesterday.So, even if it is not the best chivalry movie of the era, you can trust it not to be bored during a rainy WE afternoon with your children. By the current times, it is much.

The Black Shield of Falworth is the only other story I know that concerns itself with the time of Henry IV. He's played here by Ian Keith and the film like the Shakespeare plays about him concern efforts to topple him from his throne. But other than Prince Hal, played here by Dan O'Herlihy, the rest of the cast are fictional characters from a novel by Howard Pyle. Young Tony Curtis and his sister Barbara Rush have been raised in the forest by Rhys Williams. They are in fact of noble birth, but Dad was accused of treason, his lands forfeited and his family under a death sentence. They're sent still unaware of their identity to another nobleman's digs in this case Herbert Marshall's. Curtis trains first as a squire and then a knight by tough drill sergeant man at arms, Torin Thatcher. It's for the day he can challenge villain David Farrar and his equally villainous brother Patrick O'Neal for plotting against his father.Of course Curtis also falls for his then real life wife Janet Leigh who O'Neal is also interested in.The Black Shield of Falworth was the first Universal film in cinemascope and Universal was far more interested in the spectacle of the film than the story because they were competing with the small screen that was populating the homes of America. In his memoirs Tony Curtis says that the lack of interest in the story was all apparent, but that he did like working with director Rudolph Mate and his then wife Ms. Leigh.Favorite in the film however has to be Torin Thatcher. You won't forget this rough and rugged old knight with a Rooster Cogburn eyepatch and a staff to support him walking. Still he's one tough old bird. Coming in second is David Farrar who is plotting to take the throne away from Ian Keith.Which if you remember your Shakespeare was one that a lot of people felt he usurped from Richard II. So what we're watching The Black Shield of Falworth is just another reason why Ian Keith was not sleeping good at night.

Why do all the critics love to attack Tony Curtis for his accent in this movie? (Most frequently citing the line "Yonda lies da castle of my fodda.") Since Curtis's movie acting is invariably entertaining, doesn't he deserve the benefit of a doubt when it comes to the arcane question of what accent is appropriate to a fictional medieval character? The critics have always complained that his accent sounds too American or New York for a medieval knight. But how can the critics be so sure that they are right and the actor is wrong? I mean, what did a genuine English knight of the middle ages really sound like? Have they researched this question? There were many races of people in England of the middle ages: Saxons, Angles, Normans, Celts, Scandinavians, Picts, Scots, Frenchmen, Jews, even some Moors. Back then, of course, they didn't speak modern English as actors do in almost every American-made movie, so the only issue is whether Curtis's pronunciation of vowels and consonants sounds wrong or right for a medieval knight. In the Bronx in the twentieth century (Tony Curtis's time and place) there was a mixture of races similar to that of Europe in the middle ages. The pronunciation of the local dialect spoken most likely would have been similar to that of many European languages, including English of several historical periods. Most importantly, if Tony Curtis spoke Yiddish, then he spoke a dialect very similar to medieval languages like Old German or Old English. It's pretty obvious that the critics had it completely wrong. If there had ever been a real knight of Falworth and we somehow had the opportunity to ask him to pronounce the "offending" line (which was actually the invention of a carping critic and not even in the movie), how might it have sounded? Tony Curtis had it right!

At least it was when I was 7! If you like The Vikings, Scaramouche, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Crimson Pirate, you absolutely can not go wrong with this. Curtis is excellent (in an anachronistic sort of way) and Torin Thatcher is one of cinema's greatest villains. I wish someone would bring it out on DVD!