The Prince and the Pauper (1977)
(Crossed Swords)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 108m
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Ernest Borgnine, David Hemmings, Raquel Welch, Rex Harrison
Synopsis:
England, 1547: a fleeing cutpurse changes places with his double, Edward Prince of Wales, leading to complications for both of them, but also the opportunity to right a few wrongs.
Review:
As if the cinema needed another lookalike/impostor scenario, the Salkind brothers fitted out this old Mark Twain property, after their success with Alexandre Dumas. Production-wise, bearing in mind this was the tail end of the seventies, it is starting to look decidedly shabby, and although the duelling is still choreographed with élan its lack of effect begins to pall. Reed alternately whispers and bellows like Brian Blessed, Welch doesn't appear until after the halfway mark, clearly topping up her tan in California till the last minute, while Lester, in what was to be a short-lived transition to adult performer, confers on the already coarse enterprise the rather clunky impression of a school play.
(Crossed Swords)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 108m
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Ernest Borgnine, David Hemmings, Raquel Welch, Rex Harrison
Synopsis:
England, 1547: a fleeing cutpurse changes places with his double, Edward Prince of Wales, leading to complications for both of them, but also the opportunity to right a few wrongs.
Review:
As if the cinema needed another lookalike/impostor scenario, the Salkind brothers fitted out this old Mark Twain property, after their success with Alexandre Dumas. Production-wise, bearing in mind this was the tail end of the seventies, it is starting to look decidedly shabby, and although the duelling is still choreographed with élan its lack of effect begins to pall. Reed alternately whispers and bellows like Brian Blessed, Welch doesn't appear until after the halfway mark, clearly topping up her tan in California till the last minute, while Lester, in what was to be a short-lived transition to adult performer, confers on the already coarse enterprise the rather clunky impression of a school play.
(Crossed Swords)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 108m
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Ernest Borgnine, David Hemmings, Raquel Welch, Rex Harrison
Synopsis:
England, 1547: a fleeing cutpurse changes places with his double, Edward Prince of Wales, leading to complications for both of them, but also the opportunity to right a few wrongs.
Review:
As if the cinema needed another lookalike/impostor scenario, the Salkind brothers fitted out this old Mark Twain property, after their success with Alexandre Dumas. Production-wise, bearing in mind this was the tail end of the seventies, it is starting to look decidedly shabby, and although the duelling is still choreographed with élan its lack of effect begins to pall. Reed alternately whispers and bellows like Brian Blessed, Welch doesn't appear until after the halfway mark, clearly topping up her tan in California till the last minute, while Lester, in what was to be a short-lived transition to adult performer, confers on the already coarse enterprise the rather clunky impression of a school play.