The Magic Sword is a strictly for children adventure story about a wizard capturing a princess and a prince who was raised by a witch coming to her rescue. Sad to say it needed a Ray Harryhausen touch in developing those special effects. It was also badly edited, there's clearly some footage missing as to how Prince Gary Lockwood came to be raised by Estelle Winwood the witch.
I suppose in that first sentence I did give the whole thing away, but the reason for grownups to watch this film is to see Basil Rathbone hamming it up as the evil wizard. Rathbone has a hungry dragon which apparently he feeds a very fine delicacy of princesses. No peasant girls for the palate of the beast. He's kidnapped Anne Helm who Gary has worshiped from afar and Gary now sees a great old opportunity to get into royal ranks by right of rescue.
In those Ray Harryhausen films Gary's part is played usually by Kerwin Matthews and the villain is Torin Thatcher. My guess is Ray and his usual cast and crew must have passed on the project.
Kids will want to see Lockwood take up The Magic Sword and defeat the dragon. Grownups will be loving what Basil Rathbone does with the wizard. Regular ham alamode.
I suppose in that first sentence I did give the whole thing away, but the reason for grownups to watch this film is to see Basil Rathbone hamming it up as the evil wizard. Rathbone has a hungry dragon which apparently he feeds a very fine delicacy of princesses. No peasant girls for the palate of the beast. He's kidnapped Anne Helm who Gary has worshiped from afar and Gary now sees a great old opportunity to get into royal ranks by right of rescue.
In those Ray Harryhausen films Gary's part is played usually by Kerwin Matthews and the villain is Torin Thatcher. My guess is Ray and his usual cast and crew must have passed on the project.
Kids will want to see Lockwood take up The Magic Sword and defeat the dragon. Grownups will be loving what Basil Rathbone does with the wizard. Regular ham alamode.