The Magic Sword — The Magic Sword( DVD)

Here we find director Bert I Gordon’s low-budget sword and sorcery epic from 1962 getting a region-free DVD reissue on US label The Film Detective.  The Magic Sword (aka St George and the Seven Curses and The Seven Curses of Lodac ) and loosely based on the legend of St George was quite a departure from Gordon’s previous fare.  

Gordon had made his name directing science fiction-inflected horrors usually based around giganticism.  Due to The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) among others, Gordon is seen as a master of ‘50s schlock.  Comparable effects scenes in Jack Arnold’s films for Universal (such as Tarantula (1955)) have aged well but those realized by Gordon on his leaner budgets are seen as amusing or risible.

 The Magic Sword appears to be intended in the spirit of Charles H Schneer and Ray Harryhausen’s Dynamation fantasy epic The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and its follow-ups.

Lacking the budget to support Harryhausen’s meticulous stop-motion creations Gordon’s effects work falls back on actors in makeup confronting back-projected images of ‘smaller’ actors.’ The images here are serviceable and reasonably effective.

The Magic Sword has a decent enough plot.  Princess Helene is kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Lodac to avenge his executed witch sister.  Lodac intends to feed Helene to his dragon.  Sir George, who is in love with Helene, sets out with a retinue of knights to rescue her.  However one of George’s companions is in league with Lodac.  As a movie ‘The Magic Sword’ has a likeable storybook look and belies what must have been a fairly low budget.  Production values are decent although in common with most films of this genre in this period the Middle Ages have never seemed more American.  The film runs to dark, even tasteless aspects for a sixties family film.  Lodac’s bizarre castle minions like to chow down on a dinner of leprechauns (only implied of course) and the head of a character executed by the sorcerer’s magic appears mounted on a plaque.

The acting is variable.  George, as played by future 2001 star Gary Lockwood does make a likeable lead.  The best performances come from the cast’s oldies.  As Sybil, George’s sorceress stepmother, Estelle Winwood rises above her material to be both funny and charming.  As Lodac, Basil Rathbone avoids phoning it in and sometimes recalls his steely villains of the past.

I don’t remember seeing The Magic Sword as a child but it seems to have quite a following with American Boomers.  Given that there is fan interest it seems a shame that The Film Detective has seen fit to release it in this rather grainy, cropped form.  This is acceptable for a budget DVD but the original vibrant storybook colours are a major part of the appeal of this type of film and it cries out for a widescreen release.  Let’s hope it gets one down the line.