'THE FLAME AND THE ARROW'............ACROBAT-MAN BEGINS.......

The Flame And The Arrow (1950).........is the first of three films that drew heavily on star Burt Lancaster's youthful experience as a circus acrobat....(the others, the wonderful, spoofy "The Crimson Pirate" and the modern drama "Trapeze",  we solemnly promise to cover in future posts...)

             If you can't tell from the title alone that this movie's a rip-roarin' swashbuckler......you need to watch more movies.  For both this film and "Crimson Pirate", Lancaster brought along his original circus-days partner, Nick Cravat to play his mute sidekick....(effectively hiding Nick's unmistakable New Yorkese inflections).

              The plot? Not that it matters.......something about medieval Italian peasants oppressed by snotty, sneering German nobles. All we need to know.....

               Coming to the downtrodden's rescue.......Dardo (Lancaster) their very own homegrown Robin Hood, who's so breezily carefree, he barely wants anything to do with his rebellious countrymen.

               But he does have a serious bone to pick with principal heavy Count Ulrich (Frank Allenby) ever since Ulrich appropriated Francesca (Lynne Bagget), the mother of Dardo's young son.  While this sounded like a pretty damn serious plot point to us, worthy of some heavy melodrama, screenwriter Waldo Salt skims over it, using it only as a quick way to get the bodies leaping and the arrows flying......

                And leap and fly they do, with Lancaster and Cravat jumping, somersaulting, twirling and generally defying gravity as they also defy the nefarious Ulrich and Marchese (Robert Douglas), another slimy noble.

                 Plenty of Saturday Matinee derring do unfolds, all of it relentlessly underscored by old pro Max Steiner. We especially liked the idea of Dardo's peculiar vulnerability..... unlike Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, Lancaster's Dardo is strictly an archery guy. Since his swordfighting sucks, he has to even up his lethal clash with Marchese by swiping out all the candles and forcing the villain to duel in the dark.

                  Watch, enjoy and savor this movie as a now-extinct artifact of a long lost genre.....the swift, joyous, lighter-than-air swashbuckler that depends solely on the athleticism and charm of its cast. (As opposed to the lugubrious, CGI-laden monstrosities like the last few "Pirates Of The Caribbean" bombs)  4 bullseye stars (****) for Burt and his busy bow-and arrow......