Swashbuckler film

Swashbuckler films are a subgenre of the action film genre, characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often follow a code of honour. Some swashbuckler films have romantic elements, most frequently a damsel in distress. Both real and fictional historical events often feature prominently in the plot.
History
Right from the advent of cinema, the silent era was packed with swashbucklers. The most famous of those were the films of Douglas Fairbanks, such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), which defined the genre. The stories came from romantic costume novels, particularly those of Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini. Stirring music was also an important part of the formula. The three great cycles of swashbuckler films were the Douglas Fairbanks period from 1920 to 1929; the Errol Flynn period from 1935 to 1941; and a period in the 1950s heralded by films such as Ivanhoe (1952) and The Master of Ballantrae (1953), and the popularity of the British television series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1959). Richard Lester's Dumas adaptations revived the genre in the 1970s.
Swashbucklers
The term "swashbuckler" originates from boisterous fighters who carried a sword and buckler (a small shield). "Swashbuckler" was a putdown, used to indicate a poor swordsman who covered his lack of skill with noise, bragging, and clamour. Novels, and then Hollywood, altered the word's connotation to make the swashbuckler the hero of the plotline.
Jeffrey Richards describes the genre as very stylized. The hero is one who "maintains a decent standard of behavior, fights for King and Country, believes in truth and justice, defends the honour of lady". Though these can be regarded as the values of a knight, the setting may fall anywhere between the 11th and 19th centuries.
Fencing
Fencing is an essential element of the genre, and a dramatic duel is invariably a pivotal part of the storyline. Famous fencing instructors came from the ranks of successful competitors, and included Henry Uyttenhove, Fred Cavens, Jean Heremans, Ralph Faulkner, and Bob Anderson.
Musical scores
Erich Wolfgang Korngold won the 1938 Academy Award for his score to The Adventures of Robin Hood. The 1935 Captain Blood was nominated for Music (Scoring); in 1940 The Sea Hawk was nominated for best Original Score. Korngold was known for his late Romantic compositional style and assigning each character his or her own leitmotif.
Alfred Newman wrote the scores for: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro, and the 1942 The Black Swan (nominated for Best Original Score). The 1940 film of The Mark of Zorro was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Original Score.
Dimitri Tiomkin scored Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). According to film historian David Wallace, "His trademarks, huge, noisy cues, propulsive adventure themes that seemingly employed every brass instrument ever invented, and melting, emotionally wrought melodies accompanying romantic scenes also became the stock-in trade of just about every film composer since."
Hans Zimmer scored the Pirates of the Caribbean series, reinventing the swashbuckler musical style.
Television
Television followed the films.
British television production in the genre was prolific, headlined by The Adventures of Robin Hood, which produced 143 episodes by 1959 and became an outstanding success both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Other popular series included The Buccaneers (1956–1957), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956–1957), Sword of Freedom (1958), The Adventures of William Tell (1958), The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (ITV, 1956), ITC's The Count of Monte Cristo (ITV, 1956), and George King's The Gay Cavalier (ITV, 1957), Quentin Durward (Studio Canal, 1971), Robin of Sherwood (ITV, 1984–1986), and Sharpe (ITV, since 1993).
American television produced two series of Zorro (1957 and 1990). Following the film The Mask of Zorro (1998), a television series about a female swashbuckler, the Queen of Swords, aired in 2000.
The Spanish television series Águila Roja (Red Eagle), aired from 2009 to 2016, is an example of the swashbuckler genre.
Italian and German televisions produced several series of Sandokan.
Notable films
Films with swashbuckler elements that can be considered precursors to the cinematic genre:
The Count of Monte Cristo (1908)
Robin Hood and His Merry Men (1912)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1913)
The Three Musketeers (1916)
Kidnapped (1917)
The Mark of Zorro, considered the first film of the genre (1920)
The Three Musketeers (1921)
Robin Hood (1922)
The Eagle's Feather (1923)
The Sea Hawk (1924)
Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925)
The Black Pirate (1926)
The Beloved Rogue (1927)
The Pirate of Panama (1928)
The Iron Mask (1929)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
The Three Musketeers, film serial (1933)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Captain Blood (1935)
The Bold Caballero (1936)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
The Son of Monte Cristo (1940)
Sandokan films (1941-1970)
The Black Swan (1942)
Captain Kidd (1945)
The Exile (1947)
The Pirate (1948)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
Adventures of Don Juan (1948)
The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
Patala Bhairavi, a Telugu film (1951)
The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951)
Anne of the Indies (1951)
Against All Flags (1952)
Scaramouche (1952)
Ivanhoe (1952)
The Crimson Pirate (1952)
The Golden Blade (1952)
At Sword's Point (1952)
The Master of Ballantrae (1953)
Malaikkallan (1954)
Nadodi Mannan (1958)
The Moonraker (1958)
The Vikings (1958)
Mannadhi Mannan (1960)
Cartouche (1962)
Aayirathil Oruvan (1965)
Haiducii (1966)
The Testament of Aga Koppanyi (1967)
Malkoçoğlu Cem Sultan (1969)
The Devil's Servants (1970)
Neerum Neruppum (1971)
Battal Gazi Destanı (1971)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Swashbuckler (1976)
Robin and Marian (1976)
Star Wars (1977)
The Duellists (1977)
Madhuraiyai Meetta Sundharapandiyan (1978)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)
Krull (1983)
Pirates (1986)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Kondaveeti Donga, a Telugu film (1990)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
The Three Musketeers (1993)
Cutthroat Island (1995)
Le Bossu (1997)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
The Musketeer (2001)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Fanfan la Tulipe (2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Casanova (2005)
The Legend of Zorro (2005)
Alatriste (2006)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Stardust (2007)
1612 (2007)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
The Three Musketeers (2011)
Badrinath (2011)
Baahubali: The Beginning (2015)
Puli (2015)
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Robin Hood (2018)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish'' (2022)
Notable actors and actresses
M. G. Ramachandran
Johnny Depp
Antonio Banderas
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Lex Barker
Gérard Barray
Kabir Bedi
Dharmendra
Orlando Bloom
Jim Caviezel
Ronald Colman
Penélope Cruz
Tony Curtis
Olivia de Havilland
Amitabh Bachhan
John Derek
Cary Elwes
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Mel Ferrer
Errol Flynn
Stewart Granger
Richard Greene
Louis Hayward
Keira Knightley
Frank Latimore
Burt Lancaster
Jean Marais
Georges Marchal
Kerwin Mathews
Ian McShane
Viggo Mortensen
M. N. Nambiar (Gurusami)
Maureen O'Hara
Guy Pearce
Vincent Perez
Tyrone Power
Edmund Purdom
Rajkumar
Kanta Rao
Akkineni Nageswara Rao
Sean Bean
N. T. Rama Rao
Basil Rathbone
Steve Reeves
Duncan Regehr
Tim Roth
Geoffrey Rush
Tessie Santiago
Robert Shaw
Robert Taylor
Richard Todd
Raquel Welch
Cornel Wilde
Guy Williams
Michael York
Catherine Zeta-Jones
See also
List of adventure films
List of action films
List of genres
Combat in film
Samurai film
References
External links
Swashbuckling TV at Screen Online
Maureen O'Hara - Cinema Swashbucklers
French swashbuckler films
Film genres
Theatrical combat