'SCARAMOUCHE' & 'SWORDSMAN OF SIENA'......EN GARDE! REMEMBERING A MASTER SWASHBUCKLER

Scaramouche (1952) & Swordsman Of Siena (1962)  may be 10 years and continents apart, but they both share the same dashing leading man, Stewart Granger...........an actor who excelled in costumed, romantic swordplay adventures. He could deftly wield charming quips with his leading ladies while nimbly dueling to the death with the smirking, way-too-confident villains.....

             That isn't as easy as it looks and not every Hollywood actor could step up to the plate in a swashbuckler and not look ridiculous.......

              Granger, who became a Jedi master of fencing long before lightsabres, had few compatriots in this field, other than Errol Flynn, Cornel Wilde and on the villains' team, Basil Rathbone.  But he remained forever unhappy with his pigeonholing as a standard beefcake hero, never considered for serious dramatic roles. (True enough, Granger sadly never met up with a script or a director that would push him past his competent but limited range.....)

             As a devil-may-care swashbuckler though, he was pure joy to watch as he parried and slashed his way through opponents, stopping only for a big smooch with whatever lady-in-waiting waited for him.....

            "Scaramouche", set in an ultra high gloss MGM version of pre-revolution France, serves as the gold standard for both Granger and studio swashbucklers in general.

              Essentially, it's a breathtakingly designed MGM musical.........director George Sidney has fencing swordplay erupt every ten minutes or so like song-and-dance numbers and it's all scored to Victor Young's typically overripe, heart-on-its-sleeve music.

              But in the grand Hollywood tradition of 'you-ain't-seen-nothin'-yet', Sidney saves the monumental showstopper for the end - a wildly acrobatic 10 minute fencing duel between Granger and Mel Ferrer that spreads out across every nook and cranny of a vast, ornate theater. It's the fencing equivalent of Gene Kelly's finale number in "An American In Paris".........and it's glorious, capped off with a plot twist to rival anything in "Star Wars".

             With Hollywood work drying up, Granger followed others in the now washed up Beefcake Brigade who migrated across the Pond to find plentiful work in Euro-Trash co-productions........(and you BQ visitors know by now how much we cherish these wacky films......)

              In addition to the usual pseudo-Bond EuroSpy movies, Granger found himself his own weird little franchise series......playing frontier scout Old Shatterhand in a series of West German westerns produced in Yugoslavia.....(yes, those films are hilariously strange as they sound and we promise future coverage of them....)

              The French-Italian "Swordsman Of Siena" became Granger's farewell to swashbucklers and though it's no "Scaramouche" by any comparison, it functions as a mildly entertaining sendoff for Granger's signature role as a romantic swordsman.....

                He's a have-sword-will-travel mercenary for hire in 16th century Italy, working for some noble Spanish tyrant who's oppressing the populace. As the hero of the piece, you know it won't be long before Granger joins the Resistance and romances two Princesses....(the drop dead gorgeous duo of Sylva Koscina and Christine Kaufmann)

               Some well played swordplay happens early on, but oddly, the movie's premiere set piece is not the expected duel between Granger and the villain (which never occurs) but a brutal horse race through the countryside, liberally decorated with booby-trap blades to impale the riders.........if they ever do this during the Triple Crown races,who knows,  we might tune in.....

              Through it all, Stewart Granger never loses his sense of panache and always gives the impression he's having a damn good time out-fencing the bad guys......

               And that's as much a part of movie magic as the most serious classic films......for "Scaramouche", 4 stars (****), for "Swordsman Of Siena" 3 stars (***).  Maybe Stewart Granger never got the best of roles.....but with a sword in his hand, he gave you his best.....