Lionsgate has released Crossed Swords, an amiable but too leisurely-paced swashbuckler romp from 1978, based on the Mark Twain novel, The Prince and the Pauper (the film's name overseas). Starring an amazing cast that includes Charlton Heston, Oliver Reed, Rex Harrison, Ernest Borgnine, George C. Scott, Raquel Welch, David Hemmings, and Mark Lester, Crossed Swords tries to recapture some of the magic of that decade's earlier sword fighting triumphs, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, but pedestrian direction by Richard Fleischer and a miscast lead dampen this frolic, leaving the viewer with lots of parries, but no thrust.

Set in mid-16th century England, Crossed Swords tells the fictional story of prince and pauper switching identities. Tom Canty (Mark Lester), the son of a thief and the best pickpocket in all of London, bungles a boost and hightails it out of Offal Court, eventually scaling a wall and landing literally at the feet of King Henry VIII (Charlton Heston). Henry, who is ready to feed Tom to the dogs, is persuaded to give the rapscallion a head start to escape, after the entreaties of The Duke of Norfolk (Rex Harrison), who asks leniency for the boy. Staying hidden in the castle, Tom drops down a chimney into the room of Edward (Mark Lester again), the son of Henry. Realizing they look exactly alike, they decide to switch identities, with disastrous results for Edward.

Thrown out of the castle, with no one believing who he is, he is befriended by Miles Hendon (Oliver Reed), a returning nobleman who thinks Edward is mad. Meanwhile, Tom, unable to convince anyone in the castle that he's not the prince, at first amuses his father with his protestations, but then seriously angers the ailing king, who fears his son is mad. While Edward accompanies Miles back to his ancestral home, where his brother, Hugh (David Hemmings) has nefarious plans for his estate and for his love, Edith (Raquel Welch), Tom must come to grips with ruling the state when Henry dies, resulting in a mad dash for the coronation between the two look-a-likes.

All the ingredients are here in Crossed Swords for a rousing, smashing entertainment. The cast is one to dream about, with Heston particularly good as the agreeably sadistic, crotchety, suspicious Henry. Harrison, in one of his last good showings, is his usual silky self, and Reed, all bluster and vein-popping intensity, has a unique kind of jerky, oafish grace to his fight scenes. The sets are incredible, too, with production design by Anthony Pratt that takes full advantage of the English countryside (as well as the realistically grungy village sets constructed in Budapest, Hungary). Cinematography by legend Jack Cardiff is evocative and subtle, capturing an almost Renaissance-like chiaroscuro palette that's unexpected in such a lightweight affair. And the musical score by Maurice Jarre is at times spectacular, with a rich, full symphonic weight that promises high adventure.

Unfortunately, these pluses are outweighed by the film's obvious drawbacks, with the long, long running time for such a film (121 minutes) taxing the patience of the youngsters for whom it was intended. Produced by Ilya Salkind, who with his father Alexander had produced the critical and box office Musketeers smash hits, obviously wanted to bring the same kind of energy to this umpteenth rendition of the Twain classic (including by bringing back some of the cast members from those hits, along with the screenwriter, George MacDonald Fraser). But his choice of director sinks him here. Certainly it must have looked good on paper to have Fleischer on board for Crossed Swords, considering that the director had helmed one of the most exciting, successful swashbucklers of all time, 1958's The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. But Fleischer's output had been hit and miss in the subsequent twenty years since that enormously entertaining yarn, with artistic successes such as Compulsion, Barabbas, The Boston Strangler, and Tora! Tora! Tora! supplanted far more often by middling-to-poor work like Che!, The Last Run, The Don is Dead, Mr. Majestyk, and the abominable Mandingo. Clearly, at this stage in Fleischer's career, he couldn't summon up the energy or spirit to enliven Crossed Swords the way that Richard Lester pumped up The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. Crossed Swords' set-ups are static and unimaginative, and the fight scenes are blocked in a most dreary fashion. What should be light and bouncy, falls distressingly flat more times than not.

Equally wrong-headed is the choice of Mark Lester for the dual role of Edward and Tom. Lester, who contributed one of the finest acting performances by a child in a major motion picture (the Academy Award-winning favorite, Oliver!), had by this point in his career outgrown such roles. Almost twenty when Crossed Swords' filming began, he's clearly too old for the dual roles, and not directed well enough by Fleischer to give anything more than the absolute minimum required. He's rather a blank here, and we never believe that he's created two distinctly different characters in Edward and Tom. And without a hero to really root for, we're left with looking at the pretty costumes, and the pretty sets, and the pretty locales, and the beautifully (if totally anachronistically) tanned breasts of Raquel Welch, who somehow gets second billing for about ten minutes worth of screen time.

The DVD:

The Video:
I understand that Anchor Bay had previously released Crossed Swords; I can't compare the two, but Lionsgate's anamorphically enhanced, 2.35:1 widescreen transfer is quite scrumptious, with nicely modulated colors, a generally sharp image, and few if any screen anomalies. I saw no compression issues, either.

The Audio:
Unfortunately, the film's original monaural sound is recreated here in Dolby, which provides a big, fat sound, but nothing more. Pity a remix couldn't have been done to take advantage of the fight scenes and Jarre's terrific score. A Spanish mono track is also available, as well as English close captions.

The Extras:
Regrettably, there are zero extras - not even the trailer, which I understand was included in the Anchor Bay DVD edition.

Final Thoughts:
Crossed Swords is a real head-scratcher. Everything in it should work, and from a mild, amiable, but lackluster way, it does. You can zone out and watch it, coming back and forth from whatever you're doing elsewhere and check in on it. But leaden direction by Richard Fleischer, a too-long script, some misguided casting, and a general air of forced rompiness deflates it from the get-go. The cast alone deserves a "Rent It," but beware children and young adults - who should be eating this up - who keep saying, "Is it over yet?" Rent it if you're a fan of the genre or of the cast, but otherwise, skip it, and watch Salkind's other "duel" masterpieces, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.