Bandits of Corsica

Bandits Of Corsica is a sequel to the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. classic The Corsican Brothers where Fairbanks played a pair of noble Siamese twins separated at birth and brought up separately to conceal their identities. At the conclusion of the Fairbanks film one had died and the other had saved the day and won Ruth Warrick and inherited the family estate.

I was looking forward to seeing a sequel as I had enjoyed The Corsican Brothers, but the premise was preposterous. Douglas Fairbanks,Jr. looked good and dead to me, but we find out that he did not really die. The twin roles now taken by Richard Greene has the dead twin unconscious for a long time and then waking up with no memory and now living with the gypsies. But the gypsies don't even know who their Greene really is.

I mean really. The only ones who had resurrections like these are the Universal monsters like Frankenstein, the Wolfman, etc.

In the meantime Corsica is facing a new tyrant. Raymond Burr with his aide and nephew Lee Van Cleef is bidding to take over the island and he'd like a governor generalship from the king. Burr and Van Cleef as always are excellent villains.

All I can say is preposterous premise.

If you liked "The Princess Bride," you'll probably enjoy this movie.

This is a must see for Richard Greene (Robin Hood) fans. He gets to play twin brothers Mario and Carlos. He is fine and dashing in both roles. Mario is his standard square jawed hero, but Carlos is a more flawed and complex character. He even gets to disguise himself as he often did in his Robin Hood television series, and play a third role as a gypsy fortune teller.

The story reminds one more of Zorro than Robin Hood in style. The settings and combination of swords and pistols for fighting also gives it that Zorro feel.

Raymond Burr is delightful as the villainous Baron. He is given nice support by Lee Van Cleef as his henchman. It is nice to see them both this youthful before they became stars in the 1960's.

Paula Raymond and Dona Drake are the beautiful female companions of Richard Greene's brothers. This was the beginning of Paula Raymond's career before she became a staple of dozens of 1950's and 1960's adventure television shows. It is towards the end of songstress Dona Drake's movie career. Both are fine in rather small supporting roles.

The movie moves quickly with lots of action scenes. It is just very well done and professional, albeit standard Hollywood entertainment in the 1950's.

Good brother Mario has an enemy in his own twin, Carlos (also Richard Greene), after Carlos tries to woo his wife, Christina, and plots his demise. But the brothers must come together to take down evil oppressor Jonatto, who rules their homeland of Corsica.

A sequel to the Corsican Brothers, this 1952 film stars Richard Greene, who is excellent in playing both twin brothers, their personality traits contrasting, and of course, one is good and the other not so. Well, he's flawed, complex, a bit on the edge of insanity. This causes much conflict, not that they have enough trouble with the terrible duo - uncle and nephew - played by Raymond Burr and Lee Van Cleef who are oppressing the natives and doing the usual fiendish stuff. The villainy is actually quite good here -watching these two are a treat. It's not as good as The Corsican Brothers ( Douglas Fairbanks Jnr) but it's efficiently made, has some decent derring-do and an interesting enough story.

So THE CORSICAN BROTHERS ended with one dead and the other installed in a happy life? Think again! Such things don't happen in the movies when a sequel might bring in more money. And so we have Richard Greene and himself, with the one who supposdly died having come down with amnesia for five years, succored by gypsies, loved by the fiery Dona Drake, and th whose band is on Corsica, looking to pick up some money entertaining the people. Meanwhile, Raymond Burr has become a tyrant over Corsica, which is being opposed by the one with memory and his beautiful Countess, Paula Raymond They will confuse the heck out of. The bad guys, who wants Miss Raymond. So too will the gypsy Richard Greene when he inevitably gets his memory back.

It soon settles down into the usual swashbuckling tropes, as Good Richard Greene fights both Raymond Burr and Bad Richard Greene. It would all be bog-standard stuff, except for a few nice dueling sequences, and a really good performance by Raymond Burr. There's a reason he was in demand as a movie villain.

OK, I'll do one. Typical early 50's swashbuckler that Columbia and Universal were so adept at doing although this one's a United Artists effort. Richard Greene plays the familiar (to fans of the genre) Corsican Bros. and does a creditable job. I like him more the more I see him. He's no great shakes, mind you, but is more than suitable for roles like this. I guess he's most well known as the TV Robin Hood in which there was just bit more talk, unfortunately, than action (as with most TV adventure shows). The pace is good, the sets better than expected (some of the exteriors looked filmed in Europe- maybe Mexico) and there was added pleasure in seeing Raymond Burr and Lee Van Cleef as bad guys #1 and #2, respectively. If what I've written perks the interest of fans of this sort of thing (and you know who you are) then it's certainly not one to miss. This version compares favorably- but does not come close to surpassing- the '41 version with Fairbanks, Jr.-In fact I'm almost certain that I detected a few clips from the previous version inserted into this one (which does no real harm IMO).