Burt Lancaster and his real-life trapeze partner Nick Cravat perform some pretty astonishing acrobatic stunts in "Out of the Past" director Jacques Tourneur's nimble Technicolor swashbuckler "The Flame and the Arrow" as they tangle with the villains and rescue gorgeous damsel-in-distress Virginia Mayo. Two-time Oscar winning scenarist Waldo Salt, who won his statuettes for "Midnight Cowboy" and "Coming Home," penned the screenplay for this frisky "Robin Hood" style adventure yarn that rarely takes itself seriously. This colorful twelfth-century tale takes place in medieval Italy in a province known as Lombardy. Dardo Bartoli (Burt Lancaster of "The Killers") is an agile huntsman whose unfaithful wife has abandoned him for the arms of Hessian nobleman Count 'The Hawk' Ullrich (Frank Allenby), but Dardo knows that he is better off without the dame. Indeed, he enjoys the companionship of his son Rudi (Gordon Gebert of "The Narrow Margin"), and he refuses to become involved with the local rebels who want to oust 'The Hawk.' Dardo's non-participatory attitude changes after 'The Hawk' abducts his son at the request of Dardo's wayward wife, Francesca (Lynn Baggett of "D.O.A.") wants her son to enjoy the privileges of a nobleman. Ernst Haller's cinematography is a bonus that got an Oscar nomination along with Max Steiner's orchestral score. Although the plot is predictable from fade-in to fade-out, Lancaster displays gusto galore as the heroic mountaineer who is adept with a bow and arrow. If you're a Burt Lancaster fan, this Warner Brothers costumer should keep you enthralled.
Review of The Flame and the Arrow
