DVR Alert

On Tursday, 10 October, TCM presents an Eastern-flavored swashbuckler, Son of Sinbad, starring Dale Robertson and Vincent Price. The movie is perhaps most notable for the Forty Thieves - all women - and the film debut of burlesque stripper Lili St Cyr (don't worry, the link is boringly safe for work).

Check your local times and listings.

A Very Special DVR Alert

On Monday night - Tuesday morning, actually - TCM will show Lotte Reiniger's 1926 silent animated feature The Adventures of Prince Achmed.






This is my favorite fantasy film, bar none, a tale of a witch and a wizard, a warrior and a swan princess, an emperor and a sultan, dancing girls and carnival acrobats, Sinbad and a mechanical flying horse, told entirely in silhouettes. It is a visually arresting movie, the first feature film I could get the Cabin Girl and Boy to sit through from start to finish.

DVR Alert

On Thursday, 15 August, TCM shows Captain Horatio Hornblower, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Gregory Peck, Christopher Lee, Stanley Baker, and Virginia Mayo. If you're the sort who enjoys Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cromwell - or the original Hornblower stories by C.S. Forester - this is right in your wheelhouse, and with enough stealable ideas - a mad governor, a daring raid, a dashing escape - to keep a swashbuckling campaign afloat for months to boot.

Check your local listings for times, as always.

An Unusual DVR Alert

On Saturday, 27 July, TCM will show Kingdom of Saguenay, a short documentary from 1964 about the Saguenay region of eastern Canada.

Now, that's not the usual sort of movie I recommend, but there's a very interesting bit of history here. The modern region known as the 'Kingdom of Saguenay' in fact goes back to the exploration of New France by Jacques Cartier in the sixteenth century. A post at the blog The XIVth Century explains it thus.

He searched the area for five months, sailing completely around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but he found no road to the wealth of the East. When he sailed back to France he took with him Taignoagny and Domagaya, sons of Donnaconna, a Huron Indian chief. They told Francis I a story about a kingdom called Saguenay, a country where yellow metal could be found practically everywhere.

It was located far up a mighty river which flowed straight down from the north and joined an even greater one where Hochelaga, a city of hundreds of wigwams, stood on an island. The people of this mysterious kingdom, according to the Huron tale, dressed themselves in cloth like that of white men, wore ropes of gold around their necks, and had plenty of precious stones.

Rumors of this city of gold in the forests of the north fueled the fantasies of trappers and explorers for generations, but the reported kingdom was never found. The place name lives on, however.

Tales of the kingdom of Saguenay continue to exist in my campaign, possibly spurring adventurers to journey to New France, so I'm looking forward to the short film to get a look at the countryside.

On the tangent of movies about New France, I highly recommend Black Robe. Find it if you can.

DVR Alerts - Yes, Plural

Clear some space on the DVR - it's a good week for swashbucklers!

On Tuesday, 9 July, TCM airs The Spanish Main, starring Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, and Walter Selzak. Binnie Barnes, as Anne Bonney, steals every scene she's in.

On Wednesday, 10 July, TCM follows up with King Vidor's Bardelys the Magnificent, based on the Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name. It's funny, chastely erotic, and swashbuckling by turns - not to be missed.

Thursday, 11 July, features no less than three swashbucklers: Return to Treasure Island, with Tab Hunter, and two great Ray Harryhausen (RIP) Sinbad movies, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, with John Phillip Law and the incredibly sexy Caroline Munro, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, with Patrick Wayne and the stunning Jane Seymour.

Finally, Friday, 12 July, TCM shows The Warriors, with Errol Flynn as the Black Prince and Joanne Dru as the damsel in distress - not strictly a swashbuckler, it's good inspiration for gamers running swashbuckling campaigns nonetheless.

Check local listings for times.

DVR Alert

Thursday, 27 June, TCM offers a pair of swashbucklers, both featuring the lovely, raven-haired Patricia Medina: Pirates of Tripoli, with Paul Henreid, and The Lady and the Bandit, with Louis Hayward.

I've never seen either of these (!) so I'm really looking forward to both.

Local listings &c.

Three-fer DVR Alert!

It's a good weekend for pirate movies. Saturday, 22 June, TCM airs Blackbeard the Pirate, with Robert Newton and Linda Darnell. I like Newton's complex portrayal of the infamous buccaneer.

On Sunday, 23 June, TCM shows The Pirate, with Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and the always entertaining Walter Slezak, and The Crimson Pirate, with Burt Lancaster, Nick Cravat, and Eva Bartok. Both are farces, and I admit I think I've only managed to sit all the way through the former once, but the latter is goofy fun, mostly for Lancaster's and Cravat's stunts.

On Monday, 24 June, TCM changes the theme from pirates to pretenders with The Prisoner of Zenda, the 1953 version with Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, and the wonderfully sinister James Mason, the perfect villain.

Check local listings for times, as always.

DVR Alert

On Thursday, 13 June, Turner Classic Movies will show The Mark of Zorro, with Tyrone Power, Basil Rathbone, and Linda Darnell. Despite the heavy hitters at the top of the bill, J. Edward Bromberg and Gale Sondergaard, as Don Luis and Inez Quintero, manage to steal pretty much every scene they're in, as truly great character actors are wont to do; I particularly enjoy how Don Luis seems like a helpless incompetent in thrall to Capitan Pasquale, but later demonstrates his own capacity for manipulation and menace.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the fourth time that TCM aired The Mark of Zorro since the start of the year. You will not, of course, hear any complaints from me.

DVR Alert

On Thursday, 2 May, TCM airs Moonfleet, starring a dastardly Stewart Granger and George Sanders. In addition to featuring a swashbuckling dungeon crawl, the movie also answers the question, how does a guy with a poleaxe fight a guy with a sword?

Local listings and all that.

DVR Alert

This Saturday, 9 March, TCM shows Tyrone Power's Captain from Castile. The Michoacán locations and Lee J. Cobb's standout performance as the troubled adventurer Juan Garcia are my highlights of this epic swashbuckler.

Check your local listings for times, of course.

DVR Alert

TCM ushers in March with Jose Ferrer's Oscar-winning performance in Cyrano de Bergerac Friday night - this is one of those movies fans, and gamers, of the genre shouldn't miss.

Local listings, yadda, yadda.

DVR Alert

On Wednesday, 27 February, TCM plays the The Thief of Bagdad, starring Sabu as Abu, the eponymous thief. One of my favorite Arabian Nights movies.

Check your local listings for times.

DVR Alert

The swashbucklers just keep coming in February as TCM airs The Prisoner of Zenda on Valentine's Day - this is the 1937 version starring Ronald Coleman as Rassendyll and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Hentzau. I prefer the 1952 version in pretty much every way, but it's still a fun telling of the Anthony Hope romance.

Check your local listings for times, of course.

DVR Alert

On Tuesday the 12th, TCM continues its run of outstanding swashbucklers this month with The Spanish Main, starring Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, and a wonderful Walter Slezak as the Spanish grandee, Don Alvarado. As great as they are, however, Binnie Barnes as Anne Bonny steals every scene she's in.

Check your local listings for times, as always.

DVR Alert

If you missed The Mark of Zorro last week, you have a chance to catch it again, along with another Tyrone Power swashbuckler, Captain from Castile, on TCM Friday night.

Don't forget to check your local listings for times.

DVR Alert

If Monday night's The Adventures of Don Juan whetted your appetite for more Errol Flynn, on Thursday Friday see him in his prime when TCM shows The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood back-to-back.

Local listings, yadda yadda

DVR Alert

Clear some space on the DVR - Monday night's Turner Classic Movies schedule, titled, "Sword Play," features five excellent swashbucklers: Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro, Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Don Juan, Jose Ferrer - in a rare Oscar-winning cape-and-sword performance! - in Cyrano de Bergerac, Raiders of the Seven Seas, and Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara - as the daughter of Athos! - in At Sword's Point.

Check your local listings for times, as always - and seriously, isn't it well past time for you to delete Dungeons & Dragons: Book of Vile Darkness?

Cinematic: The Prisoner of Zenda

DVR Alert

On Friday, December 14, TCM will air The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole, Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkis, John Castle, and Timothy Dalton. It's not a swashbuckler, of course, but as a primer on dynastic politics, it's a must-see.

A Very Special DVR Alert

On Sunday, 2 December, TCM is showing King Vidor's long-lost 1926 silent classic, Bardelys the Magnificent.

This is perhaps the best cape-and-sword movie you've never seen, with a scandalous wager, a secret identity, an ill-starred romance, and a great escape worthy of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Though it's listed as part of the Sunday schedule, the broadcast time on TCM's website is 12:15am Monday morning, so check your local schedule closely.