Though Alan Ladd is associated mostly with Film Noir and Westerns he found the time for a few swashbucklers during his career.
THE BLACK KNIGHT (1954) – During the time of Camelot, King Arthur and Guenevere, a blacksmith and swordsmith named John (Alan Ladd) is in love with Lady Linet (Patricia Medina). John has no chance of winning her as a mere blacksmith, so he forges a special sword for himself and is covertly taught fencing, riding and jousting by a sympathetic knight named Sir Ontzlake (Andre Morell).
Meanwhile, treacherous Knight of the Round Table Sir Palamides (PETER CUSHING) has allied himself with Pagan Cornish ruler King Mark (PATRICK TROUGHTON, so two Doctor Who stars) against King Arthur. Sir Palamides is plotting to help the armies of King Mark overthrow Arthur and Guenevere, then outlaw Christianity.
John the Blacksmith accidentally stumbles upon part of the villains’ schemes and tries to warn King Arthur but isn’t believed against the word of King Mark and a Knight of the Round Table. Sir Ontzlake helps the now fugitive John adopt a false identity called the Black Knight. Using that nom de guerre, Alan Ladd repeatedly foils the villainy of King Mark and Sir Palamides.
The Black Knight also saves Lady Linet from becoming a Pagan sacrifice by Mark’s sinister allies at Stonehenge. In the end the invading troops are defeated and John kills King Mark and Sir Palamides in battle. Lady Linet, who knew the Black Knight was John all along vouches for him to King Arthur, who knights him for real so that he and Linet can get married.
Harry Andrews, Laurence Naismith and Jean Lodge also star. 85 minutes.
DESERT LEGION (1953) – Alan Ladd stars as French Foreign Legion Captain Paul Lartal during the Rif War of the 1920s. His unit has been clashing with the troops of Omar Ben Khalif (Richard Conte) all over the deserts of North Africa.
In one encounter, Omar lures Captain Lartal and his men deep into the mountains, then ambushes them. After a savage battle, only Paul is left alive out of all the Legionnaires. He, too, would have perished if not for the medical intervention of Princess Morjana (Arlene Dahl) of the legendary hidden city of Madara.
She has fallen in lust with Captain Lartal and nurses him back to health. Paul learns that he must earn his right to leave the city alive in trials by combat. Omar Ben Khalif is really Crito of Madara, who robs and plunders from French North Africa using the Omar alias and still hates our hero.
Lartal wins all the fights, and though he and Princess Morjana are both in love now, he knows his duty is to return to his unit in the French Foreign Legion. None of his comrades believe him about the hidden city until one day the princess shows up to plead with Paul to come back with her and save Madara from Crito.
That villain is trying to take over the hidden city and force Morjana to marry him. Captain Lartal and one of his corporals (Akim Tamiroff) go back to Madara with the princess. Paul’s heroics defeat Crito and save Princess Morjana, who marries the Legionnaire so that he can stay with her in the hidden city. A nice mix of Foreign Legion actioner with H. Rider Haggard lost civilization tales. 86 minutes.
DUEL OF CHAMPIONS (1961) – Alan Ladd stars as the ancient Roman soldier Horatio in this flick which is part swashbuckler, part peplum and part Roman national legend. The young city-state of Rome is warring with the much older Alba Longa, with each side feeling that it should conquer the other and rule both as a new mega-city-state.
Ladd’s Horatio is a military hero and veteran of several campaigns against Alba Longa. In the latest battle, however, he is defeated and taken as a Prisoner of War. The Alba Longans throw him in a pit of wolves to be devoured but he manages to kill them all and escape.
By the time he gets back to Rome he has been given up for dead and his true love Marcia has married one of his two brothers. Moreover, now that he’s turned up alive, he’s accused of deserting his men during the battle they lost.
At length the Roman King is told by an oracle that he and Alba Longa must settle their years-long war with one battle between three brothers from Rome (Horatio and his bros) and three brothers from Alba Longa (the Curiatii). At first Horatio doesn’t want to participate given how Rome has treated him but changes his mind in the end.
In the lengthy final clash, both of Horatio’s brothers get killed but he single-handedly kills all three Curiatii brothers. Rome wins and Horatio marries his brother’s widow. 105 minutes.
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