Lord Grade’s ITC gave director Terry Marcel a modest budget of less than a million pounds to throw his hat into the rampant sword-and-sorcery genre of the early 1980s.
Marcel engaged a young square-jawed American unknown called John Terry to play the hero, Hawk, and the ferocious Jack Palance as Hawk’s wicked warlord brother Voltan and then spent six weeks lugging a small team of actors and film technicians back and forth between the black lakes and knotty woodlands of old England and a fake forest at Pinewood Studios.
Hawk is given ‘the magic mind sword’ by his dying father (Ferdy Mayne) with the words “the ancient power must never fall into the hands of the devil’s agents”. He then gathers an intrepid band of helpers and sets off in pursuit of his evil brother.
Voltan
Jack Palance Hawk
John Terry Gort the Giant
Bernard Bresslaw Crow the Elf
Ray Charleson Baldin the Dwarf
Peter O’Farrell Ranulf
William Morgan Sheppard Sorceress
Patricia Quinn Sister Monica
Cheryl Campbell Abbess
Annette Crosbie Eliane
Catriona MacColl Drogo
Shane Briant High Abbot
Harry Andrews Fitzwalter
Christopher Benjamin Innkeeper
Roy Kinnear Priest
Patrick Magee Father of Hawk and Voltan
Ferdy Mayne Sparrow
Graham Stark Scar
Warren Clarke Sped
Declan Mulholland Ralf
Derrick O’Connor Black Wizard
Peter Benson Ferret
Anthony Milner Brother Peter
Stephen Rayne Thomas
Ken Parry Little Nun
Lindsey Brook Chak
Eddie Stacey Narrator
Robert Rietty
