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Scaramouche (1952)One of those great films that TCM (and no one else?) shows that you must see if you haven't. Not only does it have the longest sword fight in the history of film, but it has Stewart Granger, Mel Ferrer, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh, Nina Foch, Richard Anderson, and Lewis Stone. Great for the whole family! Granger is a man, supported by an (as yet) unknown benefactor, that doesn't know who his father was. He's rather free wheeling and irresponsible. He loves, when it's convenient, Parker who works in a traveling troupe of actors. When he finds out she's to be married, he purposefully disrupts it. He was raised along with Anderson, who is now the author of a letter about the people's freedom. This makes him the target of Ferrer, brother of Marie Antoinette (Foch), who would like the King's best swordsman (Ferrer) to settle down with Leigh before he assumes power. When Ferrer kills the treasonous Anderson, Granger escapes but not before he promises to avenge his friend's death. He meets and falls in love with Leigh before he comes to believe that they are brother and sister, though he doesn't reveal this to her. She helps him to escape from Ferrer, and he ultimately he runs into Parker's troupe, who is performing a show in town which features a character named Scaramouche, who wears a mask because he is ugly. Granger is able to assume the titled character's identity to avoid capture while he trains, with Ferrer's own instructor, for his showdown with Ferrer. |
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