The Magic Sword (1962)

Genre: Fantasy,Dark Fantasy

Source: Netflix (Instant Que)

Grade: A+


The first time I ever even heard of  this splendid little underrated fantasy movie was while I was watching the awesome late 90s TV show "100 Years of Horror" and I came to the episode that was specifically about Sorcerers and it did a little clip of Basil Rathbone as the evil wizard Lodac in this movie and which I then thought  looked really cool. So your probably able to imagine my joy when I looked it up on Netflix and saw it was listed in instant view. So this ended up being the first thing I watched that night.
             I have also been a fan of almost the entire Fantasy genre from as long as I can remember really. And the classic Fantasy movies from the 30s to the 60s are among some of my favorites. Like this one for example, as well as the 30s "The Adventures of Robin Hood" movie, the 1952s "Ivanhoe" and 1963s "Jason and the Argonauts" Movie are among some of my favorites.
                 So anyway this film was actually loosely based on the story of "Saint.George and The Dragon" which I kind of guessed when I was about a quarter way through the movie when they kept calling him George. Anyways the story was a great Dark Fantasy, quest sort of story. The whole time the movie sported some great fights and surprise twists which I was really impressed by because I was not at all expecting it to be that good! Then on top of all that the cast was really well made up. You had the great Basil Rathbone as the evil wizard Rodiac. His performance was just as good as ever, sinister, flamboyant,and all around interesting character. I think one of the main reasons I watched this movie was because he was in it. Then the main character was played by Gary Lockwood who has gone on to play such roles as Dr.Frank Poole in "2001:Space Odyssey" and even be a guest star on "Star Trek". We`ll to be truthful his performance was very standard and not nearly as standoutish as Basil Rathbones.
             Burt I.Gordon was the director, special effects guy, and the guy who ploted out the story. Now he`s one of my all time favorite directors from the 50s and 60s era. Some of my favorite films of his include "Earth Vs The Spider" and "The Cyclops". He`s always been an underrated director in my opinion and all his movies i`ve so far have really decent. Yet for some reason people always seem to bag on his movies, which is very irritating to me.  But his director in this film was great he set the mood and the atmosphere at a perfect level. His special effects were cool to, like the ogre and the hag with melty looking face stood out to me.
      So overall this was a really cool movie that I would recommend to anyone a fan of the Fantasy genre. The fights are awesome, the effects are great for the era, and the performance of Basil Rathbone alone make this movie something you should definitely check out.