If you're a fan of action movies or just early motion pictures from Hollywood history, you can't avoid the genre we call, generally, "the swashbuckler." Films in this genre are often characterized by swordfights, rope-swinging and adventurous heroes.
The silent era was packed with swashbucklers, with the most famous swashbuckling silent star being Douglas Fairbanks, whose son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., went on to star in swashbucklers of the talkie era.
The Errol Flynn era defined the genre from the 1930s to the 1940s, and then swashbucklers enjoyed a renaissance in the 1950s; Ivanhoe and the Adventures of Robin Hood, for instance, was a TV series in Great Britain.
In films, this era saw such notables as The Mark of Zorro, The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Sea Hawk. The 1980s release, The Princess Bride could be considered a swashbuckler.
This week on Flicks in Five, we'll hear Erich Korngold's swashbuckling score from the Errol Flynn extravaganza, The Sea Hawk, as Charles Gerhardt conducts the National Philharmonic.
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