The Swordsman (also known as Zapper's Blade of Veangeance) is a 1974 British action film directed by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Linda Marlowe, Alan Lake and Edina Ronay.[1] It was written by Hugh Brody. It is a sequel to Big Zapper (1973) and follows the adventures of female private detective Harriet Zapper.[2]
Reynaud Duval runs a fencing school, and wanting to be his father's sole heir, forces him to write a false will and then murders him. He leaves a note with the body which incriminates master swordsman Zendor. Duval's younger brother Karel hires detective Harriet Zapper and her Chinese side-kick Hock to investigate.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The Swordsman is remarkable only for the relentless consistency with which it apes the style of the more overblown TV commercials. Making pseudo-sophisticated hay of swashbuckling adventure, sub-Bond chicanery and the private eye thriller, the film is never more embarrassing than in its archly knowing references to other movies, from Bogart... to Jane Russell. All of which, as the script labours over the slightest of exchanges and the plot staggers from implausibility to implausibility, only underlines ineptness of the present material."[4]
Screen International wrote: "After a splendidly bizarre beginning that establishes Reynaud and Guy as cartoon strip baddies in butch black clobber, the film loses pace and much of its impudent vitality. Harriet has lost her drive and aggressive sexuality; and her scenes with Hock are played with a down-beat slowness that make her reactions to his enthusiasm and energy seem closer to those of an overtired mother than the hard-bitten disillusionment of a Samantha Spade or Phillipa Marlowe. Alan Lake makes a superb villain of melodrama, a larger than life swashbuckling baddie deserving a cause of greater devilry and stronger opponents. There is a tongue-in-cheek wit about the dialogue and direction that sometimes cracks the surface of mass market violence; but Lindsay Shonteff has been too sparing with the salt this time."[5]
References
↑"The Swordsman". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
↑Sheridan, Simon (2007). Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn Books. p.99. ISBN978-1905287543.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
