Based on one of Robert Louis Stevenson's lesser-known novels, The Master of Ballantrae is set in the Scottish highlands during the eighteenth century, when Bonnie Prince Charlie made his abortive attempt to take the English throne back for the Stuart family. The heir to Ballantrae Castle, Jamie Durisdeer (Errol Flynn) seems to care more for adventure than for any particular cause, but he gets caught up in the Scottish rebellion nonetheless.

1957's The Master of Ballantrae was one of the last movies made by famed movie swordsman Errol Flynn, at a time when Flynn was belatedly trying to switch to a more serious career as an actor after years of playing adventurous, high-spirited swashbucklers. It's hard to say if this would have panned out eventually, as Flynn's career was cut short by his death in 1959, but if The Master of Ballantrae is any evidence, he was much more suited to the earlier adventure roles.

The Master of Ballantrae starts off uninspiring, and swiftly settles down into being completely dull. While I found Flynn to be lackluster in the starring role as Jamie, the major flaws of the film are in its structure and overall handling of the source material. The Master of Ballantrae is based on a Stevenson novel of the same name, and it shows: the scriptwriter is quite evidently trying to cram in all the details of the book, rather than selecting important ones to focus on. The film opens with a bewildering and hasty introduction of a large cast of characters, most of whom are immediately either forgotten or confused with other characters. We're thrown into what turns out to be a sibling rivalry between Jamie and his brother, but it lacks substance because of the way we're hustled along into meeting them along with what seems like half the village.

The development of the plot follows the same rushed approach. At the start of the film, it seems that the uprising of the Scots to support "Bonnie Prince Charlie" will be a main element of the film. As it happens, this conflict is really just a device to set the stage for Jamie's later adventures, but instead of focusing immediately on those adventures, the film manages to muddle through a middle ground of hastily shepherding viewers through a series of short scenes with a rather pretentious narrative voiceover explaining what happened over the course of the rebellion. It's detailed enough to be confusing, while too sketchy to really get us involved in the action, and Jamie doesn't even appear until the very end, so we have no idea what role he might have had in the fight.

For the rest of the film, The Master of Ballantrae suffers from the consequences of its weak start. More adventure and action appears in the film, but it lacks a certain spark, and without any real depth to the characters, there's not much reason for the viewer to care about them.

One last question remains to be answered: how are the swordfighting scenes? As a competitive fencer, I'm always eager to watch a film that promises some exciting fencing scenes that actually have the participants doing real moves (the high-water mark is The Princess Bride, incidentally). Alas, the fight scenes in The Master of Ballantrae don't live up to my expectations. Flynn is slow and unenthusiastic in all of them, and the action is quite pedestrian; there's the sense that he knows what he's doing, but he's not showing it off. Poor cinematography also muddies the waters, with much of the fencing action happening in large crowds. For Flynn at his best as a movie swordsman, you'll have to look elsewhere.

The DVD

Video

The Master of Ballantrae is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The image quality is satisfactory for this 1952 film, which appears to be in fairly good condition. Some print flaws appear, but they are not obtrusive, and edge enhancement is moderate. Contrast tends to be poor when the image is dark; this happens relatively infrequently, however. Colors are strong on the whole, sometimes eye-poppingly so, as with the bright red British uniforms or vividly blue water, but fortunately there's never any bleeding of color. The color quality isn't quite consistent, however: skin tones tend to be reddish, and outdoor scenes look a bit faded.

Audio

The Dolby mono soundtrack is adequate but not particularly good. The sound tends to be flat and rather muffled; volume levels are a bit on the low side, but even when the volume is turned up, the dialogue lacks a certain clarity. On the bright side, there doesn't appear to be any noise or distortion in the soundtrack.

Extras

A photo gallery and cast list (with names only, no filmographies or biographies) are included on the DVD, along with four trailers for Errol Flynn films: The Master of Ballantrae, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk.

Final thoughts

The Master of Ballantrae is just plain dull, with a lackluster performance from an aging Errol Flynn combined with a lousy script. As a historical drama, it clearly doesn't hold water, and it doesn't follow through with its promises of swashbuckling adventure, either. Skipping it is the best option.