A friend of mine lent me their copy of The Magic Sword, a 1962 film directed by Bert I. Gordon. While it's still fresh on my mind, I thought I would crank out a review.
The film is based loosely on the medieval legend of St. George and the Dragon, or so I read on Wikipedia. I don't know much about the legend myself, but I probably would after a bit of searching.
Anyway, the plot of The Magic Sword is your typical "brave knight goes on a quest to save a princess from an evil wizard" deal. The sword in the title has to do with the fact that the main character wields a sword that apparently has some kind of magical powers.
Despite the use of the tired old "save the princess" plot, the film itself is surprisingly good and was a lot of fun to watch. The acting is just a bit on the hammy side, but I think it's one of the things that made watching the film fun. The film moves along nicely from scene to scene and didn't seem to drag anywhere. The special effects, though a bit cheesy compared to what we're used to seeing these days, were still pretty good considering the time the film was done. The dragon effects near the end were really cool.
There might be a scene or three that might be deemed inappropriate for very young children. There's some boobage, though very brief, near the beginning (although the version I saw blotted it out with a mosaic... the bastards). A couple of other scenes were just due to some really disturbing makeup effects. Other than that, the film is pretty family friendly.
Overall I recommend this film. It was fun to watch and there was never a dull moment. But mostly because Basil Rathbone is such a badass as the evil wizard.
