The Master of Ballantrae (1953)

Directed by William Keighley. Starring Errol Flynn, Roger Livesey, Beatrice Campbell, Anthony Steel, Yvonne Furneaux, Mervyn Johns, Charles Goldner, Feliz Aylmer.

Errol Flynn’s final Warner Bros. picture after almost two decades is a meager, sketchy facsimile of the same-named Robert Louis Stevenson book, and finds the actor in fatigued, (literally) ill form as a Scotsman who sounds suspiciously like every other Errol Flynn character. Third-rate swashbuckler is badly directed and indifferently acted (even the hammy accents sound bored); the makeup is caked on without care, and the costumes look like moth-eaten scraps salvaged from studio wardrobe storage. Slow, erratic start, plagued by intrusive narration, gives way to unexciting action scenes incorporating fencing choreography unfit for the star even on his most bottle-plagued days. Not even Jack Cardiff’s photography is appealing to the eyes. Screen adaptation credited to Herb Meadow, with additional dialogue by Harold Medford.

34/100