Ah theatrical fencing. Dramatic looking but such non-sense. The turning your back to your opponent, twirling around like a ballerina is such bad fencing. In reality, a sabre fight is typically over very quickly. Look at Olympic fencing and you will see how quickly they connect. Rarely are there more than two parrys and reposte before a strike is registered. Of course that would be too quick and not enough drama for the movies. The best fencing actor was Basil Rathbone.
The pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon!
The chalace from the palace has the brew that is true!!!
Great movie !!!!
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
In a strange coincidence I ordered "The Duelists" just the other night. Ridley Scott's first movie with Harvey Keitel and David Carradine as French Officers in the Napoleonic era.
Jorge: In 1979 my best friend in High School went to Notre Dame where he took a class from a Polish professor. This professor was in the Polish cavalry when the Germans attacked in 1939. Their horses were no match for even the early Panzers as the Germans blitzed through village after village. The slaughter was horrible as the Germans did not like the Poles. This old professor told my friend that the Poles quickly realized that the best they could do was to delay the German advances so that villagers might escape. He said at one village the Polish cavalry got in lines and charged the tanks, pistols in hand at the ready. The Polish troopers would get their horse to jump towards the tank and then shoot the horse in mid jump hoping the carcass could throw the track of the Panzer thus immobilizing the crawling metal pillbox. This professor was promptly run over and squished into the mud, mostly trapped under the horse. It took him three days to work his way out from under it.
I don't know how he survived the war and ended up teaching at Notre Dame almost forty years later, but if any of this was true, Guderian was fortunate that the Poles had no real armor.
Rob Roy, I was impressed with this and when he dispatches Guthrie with similar speed in the tavern...
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Ranger Green; Good afternoon to you my cyber friend, I hope the first day of November has been treating you acceptably and this finds you and yours well.
The movie you watched is really something and I've enjoyed parts of it several times on youtube over the years. I'll bet it was something to see on the big screen back in the day, you know?
Somehow all things that go bang, twang or slash/thump have always interested me, so listening to actual fencers talk about movie sword fights is a bit of a "thing" with me.
This chap liked the bits of this movie.
Edit - video will not post today for me, the joys of rural BC interwebs!
There's a whole channel called scholaglatoria who breaks down movie scenes as well as different types of swords and knives for their strengths and weaknesses.
The gentle reader needs to be forewarned this channel can lead down multiple rabbit holes, so please all be careful of the time allotted.
In a strange coincidence I ordered "The Duelists" just the other night. Ridley Scott's first movie with Harvey Keitel and David Carradine as French Officers in the Napoleonic era.
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Another great movie. I haven’t seen it in years!
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
I'm the fencer on the right starting at 0:24 thru 0:35 and 0:44 thru 0:58. A hit takes literally seconds.
Thanks cooper57m!!!
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
One of my best teachers introduced me to Shintaro Katsu a few decades ago.... Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. He was not only one of the top swordsmen ever on the big screen, he was an amazingly convincing actor. He demonstrated his incredible control of the blade by the fact that the "opponents" he worked with weren't accidentally killed by him during rehearsals. They didn't just use camera angles. They worked at contact distances where the tip would stop short of penetration, the dull blade could easily have knocked out all of the teeth or brain the stuntmen.
