Flame and the Arrow, The (1950)

Teamed for the first of several times with his old circus partner Nick Cravat (playing a mute called Piccolo), Burt Lancaster got to flex his acrobatic skills in this rousing Technicolor swashbuckler from Warner Bros. set in medieval Lombardy.

It’s essentially an Italianate spin on the Robin Hood story, with Lancaster playing vengeful outlaw Dardo Bartoli (aka “The Arrow”), hiding out in a Roman ruin and plotting rebellion with his crew of hardy mountaineers against the dastardly Hessian Count Ulrich (Frank Allenby) aka “The Hawk” – who has captured Dardo’s son, Rudi (Gordon Gebert) – and the ruthless German invaders.

Woven into the plot is a delicate love story between Dardo and the Count’s cousin – the royal and proud Anne of Hesse (Virginia Mayo).

This being a Jacques Tourneur film, the action comes saturated in shadow and night, although this is far from a mood piece.

The finale sees Bartoli’s crew posing as travelling circus performers to get into the count’s castle – cue an acrobatics display that turns into an ambush, including some fun business with a 40-foot wooden pole.

Lancaster performed many of these stunts himself, leading the New York Times to note: “Not since Mr Fairbanks was leaping from castle walls and vaulting over the rooftops of ancient story-book towns has the screen had such a reckless and acrobatic young man”.

Dardo Bartoli (“The Arrow”)
Burt Lancaster
Anne of Hesse
Virginia Mayo
Marchese Alessandro de Granazia
Robert Douglas
Nonna Bartoli
Aline MacMahon
Count Ulrich of Hesse (“The Hawk”)
Frank Allenby
Piccolo
Nick Cravat
Francesca 
Lynn Baggett
Rudi Bartoli
Gordon Gebert
Apollo the Troubador
Norman Lloyd
Mazzoni the Apothecary
Victor Kilian
Papa Pietro
Francis Pierlot
Skinner
Robin Hughes
Angela
Sue Casey
Lucrecia
Ruth Hampton

Director
Jacques Tourneur