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Flashing Blade, The

FORGET YOUR WILLY FOGG and DOGTANIAN: this was most definitely the right kind of poorly-dubbed European export. Sublime swashbuckler epic kicks off with war breaking out between France and Spain. A French castle is beseiged. The hero (the Chevalier de Rechy, lithe and sexy) and his sidekick (Guillot, a bit of a podge) are sent to get help from a nearby duke. The Spanish try to stop them. They have various escapades on the way including joining a troupe of hey-nonny-nonny travelling players and being nearly stitched up by crooked emissaries of the Pope. Ends in a big battle and the hero’s swordfight with the Spaniards head honcho, Don Alonso. Hero gets duke’s daughter though she had earlier betrayed him to the Spanish after he was seen snogging another girl while dressed as a hey-nonny-nonny travelling player. Sidekick gets the duke’s daughter’s maid (class system thereby remaining intact for at least another generation). Absolutely belting theme tune (“You’ve got to fight for what you want, for all that you believe…as long as you have done your best, then no one can do more, and live and love and happiness are well worth fighting for”) and ace incidental music. Zounds and hurrah!

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Joanne Gray

    February 13, 2017 at 1:02 am

    So beautifully sent up in the late 80s by the On The Waterfront team who dubbed it with a script that strayed from the plot and had viewers in stitches. Shane the same can’t be said about the rest of the show.

  2. dave smith

    April 10, 2017 at 12:39 am

    I could never make head or tail of this when I was a kid. Tried to watch it on YouTube recently. Still couldn’t. Cool theme music though.

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