Scaramouche

In pre-revolutionary France, Andre Moreau wants revenge on the aristocrat swordsman who killed his friend in a duel. To hide he joins a travelling theatre and takes the role of the masked clown Scaramouche. While performing, he keeps learning the blade. George Sidney directed, from Rafael Sabatini's novel. Stewart Granger plays Moreau, Mel Ferrer his enemy, Janet Leigh and Eleanor Parker the women. The famous element is the final duel. Spread across every part of a theatre, it runs about six and a half minutes and counts among the longest sword fights in cinema, using the stalls, the boxes, the stage curtain and the balcony. Granger and Ferrer rehearsed for weeks and played most of it without doubles. The Technicolor and the costume design are examples of MGM's lavish production thinking in the fifties. The politics stay on the surface; the film prefers adventure and romance. Who it is for: viewers who like classic swashbucklers. Who it is not for: anyone after historical depth; the revolution is scenery.