Richard Todd enjoyed a long career during which he played nearly every type of role imaginable. Among those were a few swashbucklers.
ROB ROY: THE HIGHLAND ROGUE (1953) – Accurate history has no place in this Disney film in which Richard Todd stars as Scottish Clan leader and legendary outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor. The film begins in 1715 as Clan MacGregor is among the Scottish forces fighting against King George the First of England in the Jacobite Uprising.
The Duke of Argyll (James Robertson Justice) leads troops loyal to the king and defeats the rebellious clans despite his grudging admiration for them, especially Rob Roy MacGregor. By 1717, Argyll’s rival the Duke of Montrose is placed in charge of the Scottish Highlands and is much harsher than the Duke of Argyll was.
Montrose pardons all the Jacobite Clans except the MacGregors, who are forbidden to even use their surname, hence their leader being renowned as simply Rob Roy. Our hero is imprisoned by Montrose but escapes and leads his kinsmen and loyalists in rustling Montrose’s cattle and looting his estates.
And so the film goes, with the Duke of Montrose used as a Prince John in Robin Hood figure and his underling Killearn serving as a Sheriff of Nottingham type. Rob Roy and his men thwart the bad guys at every turn, and ultimately the Duke of Argyll arranges a truce between Rob Roy’s clan and the king.
Glynis Johns co-stars as Rob’s wife Helen Mary MacGregor with Michael Gough portraying the villainous Montrose. 81 minutes. Continue reading
THE SPANISH MAIN (1945) – In the 1600s, Dutch Captain Laurent van Horn (Paul Henreid) is using his ship to transport refugees from the current war in Holland to safety in the Carolina Colonies. Storms and other misfortunes cause the ship to go wildly off course, ultimately wrecking near Cartagena. Spanish Colonial Governor Don Juan Alvarado (Walter Slezak) imprisons Laurent and his crew, sentencing them to hang. 
Captain van Horn and his crew take the Contessa to the port where the Barracuda and other pirate vessels hide out. A very inaccurate rendition of pirate Anne Bonny (Binnie Barnes) is jealous that Francesca has taken her man Laurent. She joins forces with pirate captains who resent van Horn’s leadership to deliver Francesca to Alvarado. 
Here’s a mid-week current events roundup from 
FROM AUGUST 31st, 2017 – Balladeer’s Blog is on record as despising both of the rival gangs of white-collar criminals called Democrats and Republicans. Mother Jones once again did some posthumous communicating with me about our de facto Third Party President Donald Trump, who is squaring off against both those sets of villains like Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. 
It is below. But first a photo of LYNN YAEGER, the Fashion Fascist who tried ridiculing First Lady Melania Trump (Mother Jones told me Melania is our greatest First Lady since Jackie Kennedy). This fashion writer (honestly) made fun of Melania for wearing high heels as she entered Air Force One with her husband – United States President Donald Trump – to visit Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. 
Barack Obama truly is garbage. Not only did this squirrely, wormy little man wait until he was DONE with his golfing vacation before visiting flood-ravaged Louisiana but when the delicate-minded child was pressed a little about his callous attitude toward the human suffering he was ignoring all that time this alleged human being ACTUALLY, REALLY said “I’m out in five months.” 
SOLO (1980) – Written by Jack Higgins. Solo is not exactly one of my favorite espionage novels but it is definitely my favorite by Jack Higgins. It’s the story of efforts to catch an international assassin code-named the Cretan Lover. Luckily that ludicrous codename is often shortened to just “The Cretan” throughout the novel. I’ll use the same review format that I used for my look at The Top Seven Robert Ludlum Novels. 
