FLORIS (1969 and 1975) – Actor Rutger Hauer and director Paul Verhoeven first worked together for this adventure series set during the very early 1500s. The program aired on Netherlands television in 1969, then was remade – again with Hauer in the swashbuckling title role – in 1975 for German television and ran for even more episodes than the original series.
Rutger starred as the fictional Floris van Rozemondt, the knightly lord of his eponymous castle. Ever the adventurer, Floris had spent ten years as a mercenary, a privateer and a sea trader, acquiring quite a fortune from the latter two pursuits.
Around the year 1502, word finally caught up with our wandering hero that his father and two older brothers had died. Floris returned home, accompanied by his adventuring sidekick Sindala (Jos Bergman), an Indian Fakir. (Floris and the Fakir was originally going to be the title of the series.)
Upon his arrival, Floris discovered that Castle Rozemondt had been unjustly taken from him and occupied by Maarten van Rossum (Hans Culeman) – a subordinate of the Duke of Guelders. The Guelders Wars, centering on efforts to bring the Netherlands together as one nation, had broken out during Floris’ absence and van Rossum was on the opposing side of Floris’ family.
Floris and Sindala fought their way out of the hands of the enemy and wound up allied with Wolter van Oldenstein and his men at Castle Oldenstein. I often wonder if the 1991 film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves took partial inspiration from the premise of Floris, with a returning nobleman fighting oppression alongside a nonwhite comrade from his overseas adventures. Continue reading
PRECIOUS FIND (1996) – This is a hilariously bad attempt to do a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That description makes this movie sound much, MUCH better than it really is. 
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