The Magic Sword (1962) – Review

When it comes to low budget science fiction films the name Bert I. Gordon is easily one of the most forefront, as he’s produced such on-the-cheap “classics” as The Amazing Colossal Man, Village of the Giants and The Food of the Gods, but not only did he produce such films he also directed, wrote and even had a hand in the special effects that brought them to life.  Despite the quality of the finished product you have to admit that is still pretty impressive.  In 1962 he turned his talents towards the realm of fantasy adventure films with The Magic Sword, or as it is sometimes known as The Seven Curses of Lodac, and make no mistake The Magic Sword is a bad movie with the costumes and props all looking like stuff stolen from the local high school production of Macbeth, but the film does have a certain charm to it and those who are fans of the “So bad it’s good” type films will consider this mana from Heaven.

The hero of the film is Prince George (Gary Lockwood) who was raised since he was a boy by the sorceress Sybil (Estelle Winwood), an elderly magic user who worries that her foster child won’t learn a good trade because he spends all his time mooning over a girl that he’s been spying on through a magic pool. This is one of those “Love at First Sight” stories and the fact that our “hero” is basically a Peeping Tom isn’t supposed to be held against him, but love hits a snag when watching her bathe (see total peeper) he is forced to futilely watch her being kidnapped by some form of dark magic. Turns out that the evil sorcerer Lodac (Basil Rathbone) has a bone to pick with the current monarch because in the past his daughter was burnt for being a witch, and now in seven days Princess Helene (Anne Helm) will be fed to a dragon.

“Back off, I’m Basil Rathbone!”

Sir Branton (Liam Sullivan) vows to find Lodac’s castle and free the Princess, he’s a bit of an arrogant douche so right off the bat we don’t trust him, but Lodac ensures the King (Merritt Stone) that seven curses stand between any supposed hero and their prize and that no one has a chance of surviving the dark journey. The King tells Sir Branton, “The man who saves Helene will have her hand in marriage and half my kingdom.” So basically it’s your standard save the princess contract.  Of course, Prince George had been listening in on the whole deal through Sybil’s magic mirror and he wants the prize for himself…cause you know, true love and all that. Sybil doesn’t want her dear boy running off to face Lodac because 300 years ago her father and brother were devoured by Lodac’s dragon and so she tries to distract George by showing him the presents she’d planned on giving him on his 21st birthday; the swiftest steed in the world, armour that no weapon can pierce, a nifty shield, and of course a magic sword.

“This sword I found at Spencer’s Gifts.”

This illustrates that being an immortal sorceress doesn’t mean you’re all that bright because no sooner does she show him his future gifts, ones she tells him are capable of defeating Lodac, he tricks her into the cellar and locks her in. Then along with six revived knights, who were the most valiant knights in the world until Sybil’s brother turned them to stone, George marches off to the castle to offer his services in the rescuing of Princess Helene. Sir Branton is less than thrilled with this development, not strange being he’s actually in league with Lodac and clearly an asshat, but he can’t come up with any reasonable excuses for not taking George and his buddies along so the merry band hit the road. The bulk of the film consists of our heroes (plus Sir Branton) encountering the various curses that Lodac has seeded along their route.

A giant ogre.

A treacherous swamp.

A beautiful maid who turns out to be an evil hag.

He even loses two men to…an evil spiral graph?

It’s during this journey that we learn that the traitorous Sir Branton, who’s basically been leading our heroes from trap to trap, is working with Lodac because Branton has Lodac’s magic ring which the magician lost and he wants it back desperately.  Branton had promised to return the ring if Lodac helped him win the Princess through this entire staged kidnapping/rescue plan. George leans of Branton’s treachery when he and the last remaining knights are lured into a cave where they are quickly sealed in by Branton, but being entombed alive isn’t the real danger here but the strange green apparitions that soon attack them could mean their doom.

These things look like escapees from The Haunted Mansion ride.

Things are even worse off than poor George realizes as dear ole Sybil tried to brew up a powerful spell to take out Lodac but instead it resulted in all of George’s magical weapons being depowered, his first clue that something is amiss is when he tries to use the sword to open the cave’s sealed entryway and it fails.  So George’s last remaining noble companions is forced to sacrifice himself so that our hero can escape. Go Team George! With success just around the corner, George rushes to Lodac’s castle, finds Princess Helene, and makes for their escape from this foul domicile, but of course, this was all part of Lodac’s plan and George had actually only managed on “rescuing” the hag he’d driven off earlier, who Lodac had since disguised herself as the fair Helene. The nice twist here is that this also fooled that bastard Sir Branton who upon getting his prize he hands over the ring to Lodac to only find out his prize is the hag, he whines to Lodac, “But we made a bargain.”

“I don’t bargain with mortals, I destroy them!”

In a moment of true evil badassery, Lodac uses magic to put mount Branton’s head on a plaque on the wall, but then he makes the standard villain mistake of imprisoning George instead of immediately killing the hero, apparently, so that he can witness Helene being eaten by his dragon from the tower window. I’m betting that kind of thing is in the evil villain rulebook and if you skip that part, and go straight to killing the hero, you get kicked out of the killed of the evil magician’s society or at least given a nasty fine. Lucky for our hero Lodac also has the standard allotment of useless minions that accidentally free a bunch of shrunken prisoners who quickly make their way up the tower to free George so that he can battle the dragon and save the girl. Now up till this point the costuming, make-up and effects have all been pretty terrible but then when we finally see the dragon it’s actually pretty impressive.

I wonder if Lucas stole this two-headed fire-breathing dragon idea for Willow.

Unfortunately awesome dragon aside the ending of the movie is rather anti-climactic; Sybil finally remembers the spell and is able to re-magic George’s sword, who then just runs up and stabs the poor dragon once to kill it, Sybil then somehow manages to steal Lodac’s ring during all this and just when the evil sorcerer is about to unleash the seventh curse on George and Helene (which apparently is himself) Sybil turns into a panther and mauls him to death. We cut to the epilogue where George and Helene are being married and all those valiant knights have been magically restored thanks to the stolen ring…the end.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The Magic Sword is a bad movie, its dime store Halloween costumes and over-the-top acting exploding across the film’s modest eighty-minute running time are a testament to that, but surprisingly this was also about the only Bert I. Gordon film not savaged by the critics. How was this possible you ask? Well this was a kid’s film and thus its low production values actually worked well for its intended market, and even older audiences could enjoy the goofy charm that pervaded the film.  I bet even children of today could find this odd little fantasy adventure entertaining. This film is certainly no Lord of the Rings, heck it’s not even on par with The Sword and the Sorcerer, but you could have fun watching it if you go in with the right attitude.

Note: Gary Lockwood, a few years away from starring in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is given a “co-starring” credit along with Anne Helm who played the Princess. These are the film’s romantic leads but somehow they aren’t considered the stars of the film. No one, apparently, gets top billing over Basil Rathbone.