The Dark Avenger

The Dark Avenger (1955)

Flaming With the Barbaric Cruelties And Infamous Conquests of the Dark Age of Terror!

Edward, Prince of Wales, son and heir to his father King Edward III of England, leads an English army to the French province of Aquitaine to protect the inhabitant from the ravages of the French. After defeating the French in battle, the defeated French plot to kill the prince. Failing in this, they kidnap his lady, the lovely Lady Joan Holland. Of course Prince Edward has to ride to the rescue, adopting numerous guises to save his paramour, which ultimately end in him leading his men into one final climactic battle against the French. (Also known as "The Warriors" and "The Black Prince").

Date of release
1955-04-15
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (13)
Runtime
1h 25m
Genres
Action, Adventure, Drama, History, Romance, War
Director
Henry Levin

Casting

Interesting facts

The Dark Avenger is a 1955 British historical action adventure film in CinemaScope directed by Henry Levin. The screenplay was written by Daniel B. Ullman. The film stars Errol Flynn, Joanne Dru and Peter Finch. The music score is by Cedric Thorpe Davie. It is also known as The Warriors in the United States, and had a working title of The Black Prince in the United Kingdom.

Production

The film was originally known as The Black Prince.

It was the prestige production for Allied Artists in 1953–54, a co-production with Associated British Pictures, to be filmed in England, shot in CinemaScope and Technicolor. It was personally produced by Walter Mirisch, who was production head of Allied Artists at the time. Mirisch had developed the project with Dan Ullman. It was Allied's first production budgeted at $1 million.

The use of CinemaScope saw 20th Century Fox became involved as partners in production and distribution on the film, as part of an arrangement between it and Allied Artists. (It was a two-picture arrangement, the other film being The Adventures of Haji Baba). Allied Artists took Western distribution rights, Fox took Eastern.

Joanne Dru was also imported to play the female lead; Peter Finch was cast as the main villain. Henry Levin was chosen to direct on the basis of several swashbuckling films he had made for 20th Century Fox and Columbia. The film was reported to be the biggest undertaking in Allied Artists history. Filming started on 2 August 1954. Shooting mainly took place at Elstree Studios (and used a castle constructed by MGM for Ivanhoe).

"He also did not look well in the picture", wrote Mirisch. "His face was puffy and he was clearly too old for the role, but I hoped careful photography might offset that. It didn't. Before we started to shoot, I asked him to diet and hopefully lose some weight, which he didn't do.

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