"Eyerollious." Absolutely brilliant, Bee!

I saw the television production of the Andersonville trial with William Shatner (way back). I thought Bill actually did a pretty good job! Up until then, I hadn't seen him in anything but "Star Trek" and one episode of "The Twilight Zone." Since "Andersonville," it's been kinda downhill. . . .

Yeah, Rapaire, swingin' on chandeliers, running up and down stairs, slipping on carpets, tripping over furniture, and tightrope walking along balcony railings are all essential techniques of swordplay—for movie actors (your maitre d'armes didn't teach you all this!?? Well, there goes a potential acting career!). Every now and then you spot and actor who maybe actually took a fencing lesson or two (stage fencing) when in drama school (if they actually went to a drama school). But trying to work in a little good swordplay while you're hanging onto a curtain with your teeth and swinging outside of a window three stories above a cobblestone street is not real easy to do.

The villain, at this point, realizes that he cannot prevail against your brilliantly conceived parries, so he slashes the curtain (especially clever of him when he does this with a French small-sword that has no cutting edge), sending you hurtling to the street below with the piece of curtain still clutched in your teeth, to land in a cart full of hay that just happened to be passing by. Just a temporary set-back. You leap out of the hay cart and bound up the stairs to have another go at the villain.

(Jeez, that's not bad! I might just turn my hand to screenwriting!)

With the exception of the duel scene in "Monsieur Beaucare" with Bob Hope in the title role (supposed to be a complete farce and a vehicle for Hope to clown it up), probably the most "over the top" movie duel scene was in "Scaramouche," between Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer.

The movie bore only the vaguest resemblance to Rafael Sabatini's novel, which was one of the Sabatini novels that got me interested in fencing in the first place (I read it in high school). Sabatini's novels are so well and accurately researched that the background in Scaramouche of the lead-up to the French Revolution also got me very interested in history. The character portrayed by Granger was far different from the André-Louis Moreau that I knew, and although the movie was a spectacular romp, it was pretty sad compared to what it could have been. But that's Hokeywood.

Don Firth

P. S. I saw a pretty good duel scene in the Seattle Repertory Theater's production of "Hamlet" a few years back:   the sword-and-dagger match between Hamlet and Laertes in the final act. The actors brought it off very convincingly without a lot of gratuitous swashbuckling*. The Seattle Rep apparently has a pretty good fight coach.

*Swashbuckling = swash from the neck up, buckling from the knees down.