Sword Of The Valiant (Pan & Scan)

 

Picture: C-     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: C-

 

 

Some films are so bad, you have to see them to believe them, and many were produced by the infamous Cannon Group.  Part of this was to do silly knock-offs of anything they could, but the twist was that company heads Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus (known by executives at bigger and better companies as the “go-go boys”) had more money than they should have ever had and Stephen Weeks’ Sword of the Valiant (1984) is a typical example.

 

The “boys” hired Miles O’Keeffe (the Tarzan of the moment), Sean Connery (picking up extras bucks while making the far better Bond film Never Say Never Again), Peter Cushing, Trevor Howard, Ronald Lacey, and John Rhys-Davies for this Conan wannabe that manages to be even worse than Conan The Destroyer (released the same year with Richard Fleischer helming the nadir of his career).  Miles is Sir Gawain and Connery is the Green Knight in one of the most preposterous outfits in bad fantasy filmmaking.  What is the point?  Either way, Connery would fare better later with the Highlander franchise and did better before either with Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits.  This even makes less sense than The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

 

The script by Weeks, Philip M. Breen and Howard C. Pen is pointless and bores the audience as quickly as Weeks directing.  All the stars here are as wasted as they would have been if they did Penthouse Magazine’s Caligula, but the film is oddly castrated of any sexuality, a trapping of this genre on at least corny levels.  Connery is hardly in the film anyhow, but it was O’Keeffe who seems to have finally forgotten about being a major action star and did as many of these theatrical film opportunities before taking that long straight-to-video road he has been walking down since.  Then again, after the sexed-up 1981 Tarzan with Bo Derek, Christopher Atkins from The Blue Lagoon had a better chance of becoming an action star.  Arnold Schwarzenegger broke out the same year in the first Terminator, so guy like that with 1970s masculine roots were trashed by Hollywood for good.  Too bad this film got made first.

 

The pan and scan image is a wreck, missing 66% of the 2.35 X 1 J-D-C Scope image the film was originally shot in.  Freddie Young is co-credited as cinematographer, but it is likely Peter Hurst shot most of the film, because it does not look like Young’s work throughout in the least.  The trailer is the only extra, but it shows how much better this actually looked widescreen, but MGM recycled this tired transfer knowing only completists would want this DVD.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has warped sound in spots all over, especially with the music score by Ron Geesin, who seems as bored as we are.  The film was a Dolby A-type analog theatrical release with Pro Logic type surrounds.  The pan and scan also butchers the soundstage of the simple sound design, while actual surrounds are nothing to write home about.

 

This film is thankfully forgotten being sandwiched between higher-profile Connery releases like Outland, Never Say Never Again, the first Highlander and Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables.  It looks like that was for the best.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo