After the success of The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind tried to recreate the mix of humor and swashbuckling action in Crossed Swords, aversion of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Mark Lester, the child star of the musical Oliver! now a young adult takes the lead as both Edward, Prince of Wales, the son of a dying Henry VIII (Charlton Heston), and street kid Tom Canty, the son of a bullying, brutish thief.
They meet when Tom inadvertently sneaks into the castle grounds and the Prince has them swap clothes as a lark, only to be ejected back into the streets. Musketeers star Oliver Reed plays Miles Hendon, a nobleman soldier returning from foreign wars who takes pity on the kid who claims to be the Prince and helps the lad reach the castle to stop the coronation of Tom.
The film boasts a terrific cast but a clumsy screenplay (despite what appears to be a last-minute rewrite from Musketeers scribe George MacDonald Fraser) and Richard Fleischer, a talented jack-of-all-trades director, fails to bring wit or style to the production, which only comes alive in the impressive sword-fighting sequences. Reed adds much-needed dynamism and character intensity as Miles but Lester is awkward in both roles, playing Tom with a blank, wide-eyed look and the Prince as an insufferable, oblivious kid.
And while Charlton Heston seems to be going through the motions as the aging Henry VIII and Ernest Borgnine is out of place as an English cutpurse, George C.Scott is marvelous as the king of the beggars, bringing charming gravitas to his brief time onscreen, and Rex Harrison commands as the wily Duke of Norfolk.
It's well mounted, with colorful sets and costumes and location work, but the story simply lumbers along without any of the dynamic style or self-effacing humor that elevated the Musketeers films.
The 1937 The Prince and the Pauper with Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, and twins Billy and Robert Mauch in the title roles, is a much better and more entertaining version of the novel. Rated PG, there's no foul language or explicit violence, just a lot of brawls and swordplay.
It debuts on Blu-ray and a new DVD release from a new 4K master of archival materials and features a new audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, a new interview with star Mark Lester, and the longer 121-minute International Cut offered in standard definition. Optional purchase.