Obviously made for the kiddie matinée audience, "The Magic Sword" focuses on an evil sorcerer (Basil Rathbone) who has his eyes set on princess Anne Helm as a snack for his dragon. His old enemy, good witch Estelle Winwood is upset when her adopted son Gary Lockwood, locks her in a cellar, steals the prize horse and magic sword, in an attempt to rescue Helm. Along with the nefarious knight Liam Sullivan, Lockwood and his series of knights from all over Europe, go on the quest to free the princess. Two unfortunate princesses locked up with Helm don't get freed, although it is obvious that the dragon could floss his teeth with them rather than eat them. (Perhaps the dragon had never heard the adage of potato chips that you can never eat just one, as Rathbone seems to have the creature on a strict diet of one or two princesses a week).
On the way, Lockwood, Sullivan and the knights encounter such creatures as an ogre who looks like one of the chorus boys from "Cats" and a French maiden who is really a hag, while Helm is terrorized by the evil cousins of "Snow White's" dwarfs (which includes Angelo Rossitto, a veteran of some of Bela Lugosi's Monogram horror films). Vampira ("Plan Nine From Outer Space") is the French maiden/hag, billed under her real name of Maila Nurmi. While the special effects are mediocre at best, they are fun, and Winwood is certainly amusing, especially trying to remember the spell to give Lockwood back his magic powers. Hopefully young audiences today accustomed to the computer generated special effects won't find this too silly as those of us who remember the good old days of films like this, "Jack and the Giant Killer" and all of the wonderful Ray Harryhausen spectacles that had an innocence that today's films couldn't imagine.
On the way, Lockwood, Sullivan and the knights encounter such creatures as an ogre who looks like one of the chorus boys from "Cats" and a French maiden who is really a hag, while Helm is terrorized by the evil cousins of "Snow White's" dwarfs (which includes Angelo Rossitto, a veteran of some of Bela Lugosi's Monogram horror films). Vampira ("Plan Nine From Outer Space") is the French maiden/hag, billed under her real name of Maila Nurmi. While the special effects are mediocre at best, they are fun, and Winwood is certainly amusing, especially trying to remember the spell to give Lockwood back his magic powers. Hopefully young audiences today accustomed to the computer generated special effects won't find this too silly as those of us who remember the good old days of films like this, "Jack and the Giant Killer" and all of the wonderful Ray Harryhausen spectacles that had an innocence that today's films couldn't imagine.