Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon
• Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld
• Starring
  • Basil Rathbone
  • Estelle Winwood
  • Gary Lockwood
  • Anne Helm
  • Liam Sullivan

It’s hard to be critical of a fairy tale. I mean, it’s easy enough to give it a sociological critique and lambaste it for perpetuating gender subservience and an equation of virtue with social class (”There you go, bringing class into it again!”). But you can’t in good conscience complain about a fairy tale having shallow characterizations, an arbitrary plot composed of formulaic episodes; that’s what a fairy tale is. Whining about it is like getting huffy that a Western has too many horses, or that a Jim Wynorski flick displays an inordinate number of breasts.

The Magic Sword is of a piece with the other pseudo-mythology movies of the era such as the Sinbad adventures. But if your eyes are quick, you know going into it that there will be a notable difference between this and those movies graced by Ray Harryhausen and his understudies. After all would Bert I. Gordon, the original “Mr. B.I.G.” himself, make a movie that relied on stop-motion special effects? Not when he could employ forced perspective, puppets, and men in suits!

“Ooh! Look! A pointy thing! For me!”

Twenty-year-old George (Gary Lockwood) is the orphaned prince, taken in and raised by good witch Sybil (Estelle Winwood). Let’s say this for his upbringing: it must have rocked growing up in a house with conjoined-twin servants and a nattily-dressed chimpanzee. Nevertheless, puberty has come and gone, and he finds himself naturally drawn to the beautiful Princess Helene (the beautiful Anne Helm), even though he’s never met her in the flesh; he knows her solely through the Magic Pool that lets him spy on her from afar. And wouldn’tcha know it, we first see him doing this while she’s having her royal bath!

Helene seems a good-natured sort, though like all eighteen-year-old princesses, she chafes that her position will not allow her to find love where it may strike. But more pressing matters soon present themselves, as a spectral figure appears and kidnaps her.

Wait — I already used my “pointy thing” line. Dammit.

Soon, in the king’s (Merrit Stone) chamber, a sinister but flamboyant figure makes his entrance: The infamous sorceror Lodak (Basil Rathbone at age seventy with an earring and a red kerchief around his head). He’s taken the princess for revenge, as the current king’s father executed Lodak’s sister long ago for witchcraft. (Doesn’t look like an entirely outlandish charge for that family, does it?) He’ll feed Helene to his dragon in exactly seven days, giving noble hopefuls a chance to try to rescue her — if they can survive his Seven Curses!

(Odd note: Lodak has the Armpits of Thunder. Seriously. Every time he raises his arms menacingly, thunder booms. I can’t imagine that’s a sign of careful grooming.)

You know, I got spam for a porn site just like this the other day.

The bravest and suavest knight of the court, Sir Branton (Liam Sullivan), is eager to rise to the challenge, especially because the king has offered half the kingdom to his daughter’s rescuer. George, who has been of course watching all this via the Magic Pool (I tell you, stalking used to be so easy), wants to go and rescue Helene himself, but Sybil is against it because, for one thing, he’s never actually met the girl; what if he risks his life and discovers that he leaves her cold? But George isn’t easily deterred, and tricks Sybil into showing him the presents she’s got savd up for his twenty-first birthday — including the world’s fastest horse, an unpiercable suit of armor, and a majic sword that can negate any magic and open any door. (Go ahead — tell me that isn’t the perfect princess-rescuing ensemble.) He then tricks her into trapping herself in her own unescapable basement, and he’s off.

With one further trick up his sleeve: His sword allows him to release six of the bravest warriors in the world who’ve been frozen as statues in Sybil’s collection for no good reason. Just for variety’s sake, they’re a one-to-a-nationality crowd: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Scottish, and Irish. It’s like rescuing a princess with UN endorsement! (Subtract points, though, for the Irishman, as his accent was an affront to anyone who’s ever done a fake Irish accent, ever. When the knights start falling as cannon fodder later no, I shouted at the screen, “Kill the Irishman next! For the love of all that’s holy, the Irishman!”) On the other hand, this internationalist flavor just raises the question of where this is supposed to be taking place, anyway. Sure, Lodak’s got a British accent, but bad guys often do for no good reason, and both George and Helen have got that middle-American thing going.

So. George arrives at the king’s castle with his cadre of knights, and wins permission to ride with the disdainful Sir Branton as they face — the Seven Curses!

Ever seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir up close?

Of course, there’s more to it than a pure quest: not only is Sir Branton eager to get rid of his competitors in off-handed ways, but it turns out that he’s got his own deal going with Lodak. Having gotten his hands on the sorceror’s magic ring, he’s made a bargain to return it once Lodak helps him contrive to “rescue” the princess and thus get the girl and the kingdom.

The curses themselves really aren’t that interesting. Well, I suppose the first one is — it’s a man-in-suit ogre that looks like it was originally meant to be a giant ape until someone realized how bad it looked. (”We’ll call it an ogre — no one knows what they’re supposed to look like!”) Others include a murky swamp, a scorching desert, a haunted cave in Bronson Canyon, etc., culminating in the two-headed dragon that Lodak regularly feeds honey-blonde princesses to. (When he’s not doing it for revenge, he apparently keeps his hand in this princess-kidnapping racket for the ransoms.)

What helps make up for it are some of the peripheral details. Lodak’s castle, for instance, is populated by the oddest staff — dwarfs, coneheads, blue-faced guys, and bird-faced people. And that’s not counting the gargoyles all over the place with live superimposed dog eyes. And his Girl Friday (or “Hag Friday,” I suppose) is played by none other than Maila Nurmi, aka “Vampira.”

“Let’s see… Eenie, Meenie…”

It’s a pretty standardized adventure of its kind, and a full step down from the Harryhausen adventures, but it moves along without bogging down (even though the counting on the Seven Curses is a little vague — do the Armpits of Thunder count as one or two?).

Of course, nobody makes movies like this anymore; anything similar nowadays would either bore children to tears with a moralistic didacticism that replaces any evil or peril, or (for a slightly older audience) center on a fresh young whelp with a snappy mouth — you know, an “updated reimagining” of fairy tales.

Eh. I’ll take the classic style, thank you.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 9 (plus 1 ogre and 1 two-headed dragon)
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek:
  • Gary Lockwood (George) played Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second pilot for the classic series
  • Liam Sullivan (Sir Branton) played “Parmen” in the classic episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”