They Seek Him Here....

 They seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere....

I'd been aware of the existence of the 1950s TV series of The Scarlet Pimpernel for some time, but I'd never got round to watching it before.

Well, I've now seen the first episode, and it is a delight!

I'd been a bit worried it would be very mannered and stage-y, but the cramped sets actually make the sword fighting more believable, and the acting is first rate all round.  

Marius Goring makes an excellent Pimpernel, and it was a bonus to discover that Robert Shaw is playing his friend and lieutenant Sir Anthony in the first episode.  He was great fun in The Buccaneers as a pirate captain trying to live a more honest life.  Even better, the Prince of Wales is played by my favourite Friar Tuck, Alexander Gauge!

Patrick Troughton turns up in the second episode, as another of the Scarlet Pimpernel's friends, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.

At the end of the first episode, Sir Percy kisses the girl he's rescued.  Since he worshipped the ground his wife Marguerite walked on in the books, I don't think he would have done that if she'd been around for the TV series, so I can only conclude that Sir Percy is single for the moment.

Rob Roy

Well, that was a darn sight better than Braveheart!

I'd only seen clips of the 1995 film starring Liam Neeson, specifically the climactic duel between Rob Roy and the evil Archie Cunningham. The fight arranger was William Hobbs, who was mentioned admiringly by Peter Morwood in the panel on screen swordplay at WorldCon this year.
It was the sword choreography in that duel that made me want to see the rest of the film, so now I know just what bad blood was between Rob Roy and Archie, who really had no redeeming features whatsoever. It was also obvious that the Marquis of Montrose, played by John Hurt, knew that there had been some underhand dealings - suddenly, Cunningham could pay his tailor's bills, and where could that money have come from if it were not the cash that Montrose had loaned to McGregor, and which had been stolen from him?

The film was shot entirely on location in Scotland. I was a bit dubious about all the long shots at first, but it was worth it to show off all that magnificent scenery.
There's also a scene at a Highland celebration where a woman sings a song in Gaelic - I see from Wikipedia that the soloist was the lead singer from Capercaillie, Karen Matheson.
Oh, and Rob Roy's little brother Alistair was a complete idiot.

Childhood Heroes

The writer of The Age of Uncertainty blog was talking about his childhood heroes a little while ago, though I only caught up with reading the blog today. We had one or two in common: Virgil Tracy and Mr Spock, and I suspect (though I haven't checked) that I'm around the same age as he is.
Virgil Tracy, of course, was the second of the Tracy brothers, the one who flew Thunderbird 2 - and Thunderbird 2 was my favourite of all the aircraft and rockets by a long way. It wasn't only the lift off sequence with the palm trees bending back - it was the idea of having all those smaller craft and vehicles, like Thunderbird 4 and the Mole, in those interchangeable pods. And there was a moment in one episode, where Virgil saves Lady Penelope from being run over by a train in a tunnel. He's lying on the track, inches from speeding death as the train passes over him, and he's looking at Penelope. I know these were puppets and they didn't have facial expressions really, but at that moment I was certain that Virgil was in love with Lady Penelope but he would never tell her!
Mr Spock is an obvious hero to have - for me, anyway. I never did go for the gung-ho Captain Kirk types. It was nearly always the sidekick, the quiet one who was brave without being flashy about it, and Spock was intelligent, calm, logical - and not as emotionless as he liked to pretend.
One hero who was definitely not a sidekick was Robin Hood! For me, it had to be the Errol Flynn version, or Richard Greene from the 1950s, standing up against official injustice with a sword, a bow, and a quick wit. Actually, Errol Flynn was one of my heroes in just about any film he appeared in - as Queen Elizabeth's favourite Sea Hawk in court or rowing a Spanish galley, or as Captain Blood, or Don Juan, as long as he was in period costume and handling a rapier, I was there. (In those innocent days, I knew nothing of his activities in the bedroom - it was his skill with a sword I admired).
Also skilled in handling a sword, and using his quick wits to get across enemy territory to save the besieged city of Casale, (in a war I otherwise knew absolutely nothing about) was the Chevalier de Recci, the Flashing Blade himself. Looking back, they had every single swashbuckling cliche thrown into the mix, but it was all such fun!
Ilya Kuriakin was another sidekick who I liked much better than the over-suave Napoleon Solo. I spent ages, around the age of seven, practising how to say his name, and also practising the Vulcan salute.
And in those days when all nice little boys and girls watched Blue Peter, and made their own models with stickyback plastic and washing up bottles, John Noakes was a definite hero - always the one to do the dangerous stunts, and also the one with the friendly but naughty dog ("Get down, Shep!").

Now, I'm a girl, so I knew I couldn't really grow up to be Robin Hood or Ilya Kuriakin. Fortunately, in the 1960s and early 70s there were some pretty good role models for girls. So I wanted to be Emma Peel of the Avengers, and Sharon McCready from the Champions - with the ability to speak telepathically to the other Champions and throw bad guys across the room. I wanted to be George from Enid Blyton's Famous Five, looking like a boy and exploring secret passages with my faithful dog, and I wanted to be Sarah Jane Smith, exploring time and space with the Doctor.

Actually, I still want to be Sarah Jane Smith, and if I ever hear that wheezy old Tardis engine - well, when I disappear, that's where I'll have gone.