As an adult I was struck by the horrific nature of some of the images, e.g. The film is not afraid of grotesque imagery and doles it out in small, effective portions. Estelle Winwood, as the hero's spell-casting guardian Basil Rathbone, as the sorcerer villain and Vampira as a beautiful woman the knights meet on the road, who turns monstrous at a moment's notice. In addition, there are strong performers on hand who have a kind of comic book/fairy tale aspect to them, e.g. Each shot cuts right to its essential information and uses whatever low-budget means at the filmmaker's disposal-make-up, costumes, color, lighting, simple optical effects-to make the image stand out. The images have a bold graphic quality reminiscent of the best comic book art. As a grown-up, when I returned to it on TV, I may have found some of the effects less than convincing, particularly the dragon, but I still found the film quite engaging and consistently memorable. We talked about it for days afterwards and acted it out in our street games. THE MAGIC SWORD (1962) is a fantasy film that enthralled me as a child when I sat in a Bronx theater with a packed house of kids on a summer afternoon. So! If you can judge it on its own modest terms and accept it as the kiddie friendly fantasy it is? Then it's passable fluffy entertainment.
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Major plus point is the colour photography, where even though it sometimes veers towards the garish, it's mostly very appealing and vividly brings to life the good standard of costuming (Esther Krebs and Oscar Rodriguez).
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In the cast it's only Rathbone and Winwood who are good value because they firmly know how to play it in this sort of production. The effects work ranges from the laughable (rubber mask wearing humans) to the passable because of the budget (model work and super imposed placements), while the sets pre-date Star Trek standard by some four years. We are in a world of ogre's, dwarfs, Siamese twins, harpy hags, ghostly faces, two headed dragons and of course heroic knights and buxom wenches. Cheap and bonkers but seen through a child's eyes actually quite fun.
A young knight faces a hoard of mythical beasts in his quest to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of the evil sorcerer Lodac. Music is by Richard Markowitz and cinematography by Paul Vogel. It stars Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, Gary Lockwood, Anne Helm, Liam Sullivan and Danielle De Metz. Gordon who also co-writes with Bernard Schoenfeld. George and the Seven Curses) is directed by Bert I. The Magic Sword (AKA: The Seven Curses of Lodac/St. The next week we saw CAPTAIN SINBAD which almost looks like the out takes of THE MAGIC SWORD. Can you believe I saw this on a double feature with SINK THE BISMARK! Such were kids matinées in Australia in 1962. Enjoyable? Thoroughly in its mangy matinée way. She is like Edward Everett Horton in a dress. Besides, MAGIC SWORD has the unforgettable Estelle Winwood. Kubrick would have seen this, you know, I am sure he saw everything Gary Lockwood made before casting him in 2001. THE MAGIC SWORD even has a pre 2001 Gary Lockwood boy I bet he's glad Kubrick saw something in him after this. Does anyone remember those equally hilarious and ghastly 'storybook productions' like Mother Goose or Jack and the Beanstalk? Terrible but lovably hopeless and thoroughly entertaining. Kids love this film even today it has the sort of 'crummy but fascinating' manginess cheap color fantasies have. Yes it is low budget but it knows it, and Basil and Estelle seemed to be having a very sly old time brewing potent hammy acting to fling at each other and the hopeful cast.
Any adult can tell it is not meant to be taken as some sort of 'magnificent spectacle'. Why a re people so unkind to this very funny fantasy.
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