The swashbuckler arrived on British television as a result of the American
film studios' backlash against the growth of television. In the early 1950s,
when the new leisure activity of television was depleting the numbers in cinema
attendance in Britain and America, the studios put their efforts into the type
of screen product that television could not yet provide on the same scale and
with the same grandeur. Alongside such large-scale biblical epics as Quo Vadis
(US, 1951), The Robe (US, 1953) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (US, 1954) were
the colourful, lavish swashbucklers, many of which were produced in Britain
(partly because American film company earnings were 'frozen' by the government).
Among the UK-based productions during this period, using mainly British cast
and crew, MGM British Studios produced Ivanhoe (d. Richard Thorpe, 1952) and
Knights of the Round Table (d. Richard Thorpe, 1953); Warner Bros. produced
Captain Horatio Hornblower (d. Raoul Walsh, 1951) and The Master of Ballantrae
(d. William Keighley, 1953); and Walt Disney produced The Story of Robin Hood
and His Merrie Men (d. Ken Annakin, 1952), The Sword and the Rose (d. Annakin,
1953) and Rob Roy the Highland Rogue (d. Harold French, 1954).
This renewed interest in the swashbuckler - creating the third cycle of the
cinema genre, after the Douglas Fairbanks period of 1920-1929 and the Errol
Flynn period of 1935-1941 - was taken up by producer Hannah Weinstein's Sapphire
Films for television in 1955 with The Adventures of Robin Hood (ITV). The
series, notching up some 143 episodes by 1959, became an outstanding success
both in Britain and America.
The considerable financial gains to be made from this small-screen resurgence
of the swashbuckler did not go unnoticed by other television producers.
Competing with Sapphire's following series - The Buccaneers, 1956-57, and The
Adventures of Sir Lancelot, 1956-57 - in this now hectic market were Harry Alan
Towers' The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (ITV, 1956), ITC's The Count of
Monte Cristo (ITV, 1956) and George King's Gay Cavalier (ITV, 1957).
These mid-1950s series were by no means the first attempts to introduce the
swashbuckler to television. Hal Roach Studios produced pilot episodes for Tales
of Robin Hood in 1951 and The Sword of D'Artagnan in 1952, while the Danziger
brothers proposed an Arabian Nights-themed Ali Baba series in 1956. Other
producers continued with pilots for such prospective series as Captain Kidd
(1956), the Musketeers-like The Sword (1957), Prince Valiant (1957), The Gaucho
(1957), The Fox (1957), set in pre-Revolutionary 18th France, and The Highwayman
(1958).
It is interesting to note that while it was the American studios' renewal of
the genre that helped develop the first British television cycle - the genre has
since seen periodic revivals, from Arthur of the Britons (ITV, 1972) and Warrior
Queen (ITV, 1978) through Richard Carpenter's Dick Turpin (ITV, 1979-82) and
Robin of Sherwood (ITV, 1984-86) to Sharpe (ITV, 1993-97) and the more recent
Hornblower (ITV, 1998-2003) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (BBC, 1999-2000) - the
home-grown series' cultural heritage stems in part from the rampant costume
melodramas ('bodice-rippers') produced by Britain's Gainsborough Studios between
1943 (and Leslie Arliss's The Man in Grey) and 1947 (Bernard Knowles'
Jassy).
The characteristic Gainsborough milieu of dark and dangerous gypsies,
sadistic aristocrats and midnight highwaymen (and highwaywomen), and its
economically-minded company of filmmakers, found a suitable home some ten years
later with the television swashbucklers. Former Gainsbourgh directors Arliss,
Knowles, Arthur Crabtree and writers Doreen Montgomery and Brock Williams brought a welcome atmosphere of gothic melodrama (albeit sanitised) to these
series; as did pre-Hammer horror fame directors Terence Fisher and Don Chaffey.
An additional element of interest was the work contributed by writers
blacklisted by the American industry for 'Un-American' activities (Communists or
leftist sympathisers). Mainly under producer Weinstein's aegis, such 'outlawed'
talent as Waldo Salt, Ring Lardner Jr., Ian McLellan Hunter, Arnold Perl, Adrian Scott, and various others (behind 'front' names), instilled a certain intellectual value to most of these righter-of-wrongs series, as well as similar
productions by other producers.
After reaching its peak during 1956-1957, ITC's William Tell (ITV, 1958-59),
the US/UK co-production Ivanhoe (ITV, 1958-59), ABC/ATV's Sir Francis Drake (ITV, 1961-62), and the Danzigers' Richard the Lionheart (ITV, 1962-63) brought to a close the cycle of filmed television swashbucklers. Its time had passed - much like the concurrent phase of US television Westerns - when the general interest of television audiences shifted to the revitalised genre of the police and detective drama.
It is important to note, however, that the filmed costume adventure series mentioned above were of course not the only period action-drama seen on British television during the 1950s and 1960s. A wealth of television swashbuckling adventures was produced by BBC Television, based on 'classic' works, and presented in six (or more) serialised parts, usually transmitted live.
There was, for instance, Robin Hood (BBC, 1953), with Patrick Troughton as
the medieval hero; Clementina (BBC, 1954), about the stirring 18th century adventurer Charles Wogan, The Splendid Spur (BBC, 1960); set during the English Civil War; and Lorna Doone (BBC, 1963), from the novel by R.D. Blackmore. All were notable and well-received productions.
Even so, it was the works of three of the greatest storytellers of historical adventure - Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson - that
were the most handsomely produced (for their time) by the BBC. Scott's 18th century north of the border adventures, Redgauntlet (BBC, 1959) and Rob Roy (BBC, 1961), captured perfectly the essence of the outlaw hero. The development of the (literary) swashbuckler structure set by Scott was further enhanced by
the works of Alexandre Dumas (père), beginning with adaptations of The Three Musketeers (BBC, 1954; 1966-67) and Further Adventures of the Musketeers (BBC, 1967), supplemented by The Black Tulip (BBC, 1956) and The Count of Monte Cristo (BBC, 1964). Inevitably, it was the prolific swashbuckling romances of Robert Louis Stevenson that received the most BBC attention. Stevenson's vibrant
adventures ranged from the pirates of Treasure Island (BBC, 1951) and the Wars of the Roses with The Black Arrow (BBC, 1951; 1958) to the Jacobean Rebellion background of Kidnapped (BBC, 1952; 1956; 1963) and The Master of Ballantrae (BBC, 1962).
It was all unabashed hokum, of course, but with no lack of vigour, youthful spirit, sense of wonder, or regard for historical accuracy. For its time, the swashbuckler was a colourful addition to the early evening TV schedules. Like the American TV Western, the British TV swashbuckler exists now only as an occasional event.
Tise Vahimagi
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