The Purple Mask

Try as he might Tony Curtis in his long career never really lost that Bronx speech pattern. It was the reason he got the horselaugh when he did these swashbucklers. He was so much better in modern dress and when The Purple Mask came out it was 2 years from his breakthrough part in Sweet Smell Of Success.

In this film Curtis plays a Zorro like character who dons a purple mask and goes around freeing members of the old nobility. The Reign Of Terror maybe over, but the first Consul Napoleon Bonaparte still has a use for the guillotine to chop off a noble head or three.

Which is where the Purple Mask comes in. By day Curtis is a dancing master as his Clark Kent/Don Diego self. But come the night he's Counterrevolution superhero The Purple Mask and one nasty customer with a sword.

Curtis liked it enough all right. I think The Purple Mask was nothing to write home about.

In his memoirs Curtis rather unfairly attacked Angela Lansbury who was at a low point in her career and was desperate for roles and appeared in this in a rather nothing part as a maid. She clearly said she did The Purple Mask for a paycheck. Curtis took the statement rather personally and was most unfair to Lansbury in his memoir.

Other familiar faces in The Purple Mask are Colleen Miller, Gene Barry, Dan O'Herlihy and John Hoyt. I'm sure The Purple Mask was no high point in their careers.

France, 1803: 11 years after the Revolution, a royalist underground is led by the Purple Mask, who rescues nobles in distress and kidnaps Napoleon's officials for ransom, aided by the spy services of a group of lovely models headed by Laurette (really the Duc de Latour's daughter). But even she doesn't know the Purple Mask's real identity as foppish dancing master Rene...

A rather lavish, colourful ( quite literally with all those costumes) adventure in the vein of Scarlet Pimpernel. Tony Curtis plays the Pimpernel-style character, being one step ahead of the fiends, and masquerades as a foppish dance master, and this where he surprise. Curtis confidently convince as a fop who, like Zorro in 1940's The mark of Zorro has a spot of fatigue.

There are a few fencing scenes, but they are all well done. It's quite an engaging little film, has some good cinematography and passes the time nicely.

This is yet another vintage Hollywood costumed adventure romp, a "Scarlet Pimpernel" clone that proves to be a modest but lively swashbuckler with Tony Curtis cutting a dashing figure as the titular masked avenger (who, predictably, utilizes a foppish countenance as cover). Though awarding the film per se no stars at all, the late eminent British critic Leslie Halliwell nevertheless recommended Curtis' contribution here when denoting the more noteworthy genre exponents in his "Filmgoer's Companion" (an informative and vastly entertaining tome which I used to consume in my younger days but, having now been overtaken somewhat by up-to-date information which can be gathered more readily via the Internet, I do miss leafing through)!

Anyway, though the narrative pretty much follows the traditional pattern – with The Purple Mask even taking time out for romance (with unknown but adequate Colleen Miller) amid his action-packed and danger-fraught exploits – it's given a considerable boost by once again providing (as did BOTANY BAY [1953]: see my review elsewhere) a formidable antagonist for the hero in Dan O'Herlihy who, like him, is not above using deceptive cunning in carrying out his task and eventually engages Curtis in a fencing duel by the shadow of the guillotine! Also on hand in the villainous stakes are John Hoyt as the incompetent Chief Of Police, Gene Barry as a Captain Of The Guards (who is also conveniently enamored of the leading lady) and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Robert Cornthwaite (best-known for playing the misguided scientist in Howard Hawks' THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD [1951]) as Napoleon Bonaparte! Therefore, this was O'Herlihy's first on screen encounter with Napoleon since he would later also appear in the Russian epic WATERLOO (1971; with Rod Steiger); on the other hand, O'Herlihy had also just come from playing a monarch himself and an ally of Tony Curtis in their previous (and superior) collaboration, THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH (1954).

Incidentally, the script makes a passing but interesting reference to France's then-First Consul's own bid for power: while he seemed to side with the Revolutionaries, Napoleon secretly harbored a wish for Royalist restoration (which would eventually occur, albeit briefly, in 1804 – a year after the events depicted in the film – with himself as Emperor). Finally, THE PURPLE MASK – along with another popular Universal swashbuckler, the Rock Hudson vehicle CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT (1955), which I had tried to acquire recently but ended up with only 20 minutes of playable film! – is conspicuous by its absence on DVD; consequently, I had to make do in this case with an edition culled from a panned-and-scanned TV screening which, bafflingly, ran for a mere 75 minutes: the movie's full-length is given in various sources as 82 (which, even making allowances for PAL speed-up, would still leave some 4 minutes unaccounted for!).

This is a sort of "Zorro" meets the "Scarlet Pimpernel" - a colourful, swashbuckling offering from Bruce Humberstone that allows our hero Tony Curtis to pretty much run riot! He is the flamboyant, debonaire Royalist determined to rescue his friends, ransom the agents of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and engage in a bit of flirting with the daughter "Laurette" (Coleen Miller) of the plotting, ambitious "Duc de Latour" (Paul Cavanagh). It's all a bit theatrical, but has a great cast including Gene Barry, Dan O'Herlihy and Angela Lansbury to help keep it rollicking along in a fun, enjoyable fashion. The script, such as it is, isn't up to very much but that's made up for by the overall joie-de-vivre of the whole escapade and I quite enjoyed it.

As reviewer Mario Grauci points out, the screenplay for this historical drama bears a striking resemblance to that of "The Scarlet Pimpernel", released in 1934,and 1982. The protagonist, ably played by Tony Curtis, does at times wear a purple mask, though through most of the film, he doesn't. Instead he plays his unmasked self, as Rene de Traviere, or an imposter of himself as The Purple Mask. In all of these guises, he is a legendary foe of the Napoleon-led republic, hoping to restore the monarchy 10 years after the height of the Reign of Terror. Napoleon's henchmen are still ferreting out nobilities of the old monarchy. The P.M. is part of a Parisian cell of anti-republicans. Another of them is Laurette de Latour, played by cute Collen Miller. She much admires the work of The Purple Mask, but doesn't realize until near the end that he is also Rene, with whom she has had an up and down relationship. (It's hard to believe that people familiar with both the Purple Mask and Rene don't readily recognize them as the same person, with just a minimal mask to fool them.

In the bargaining with Napoleon, at the end, these 2 are allowed to emigrate to England, though Rene doesn't promise he won't be back some day. They were saved from an imminent execution by a group of compatriots, who had entered the barracks housing the royal guards, at night, bound them, dressing themselves in their uniforms, and marching out as a unit when time for the executions. They brandished their rifles, taking the Minister of Police captive, as well as the famous swordsman: Brisquet, after he lost an impromptu rapier duel with Tony.

The entry of the compatriots into the dormitory involved descending from an entrance into the underground sewer system, and traversing it until they reached the exit under the guard house, which they were able to pry open. How did they know when they were at the sewer entrance under the barracks? Also, they might have been gassed by toxic sulfurous emissions.

This film was shot in Technicolor. However, the copy I saw at YouTube didn't have vibrant colors , like it should have had. This reduced my enjoyment of the film. The main reason for seeing this film is to experience the stars. They are at their peak of beauty. That's not to say the story isn't somewhat interesting. Tony, especially, made a good account of himself: in debonair looks, acting and speaking . His fencing looked quite professional: a good replacement for Errol Flynn. He makes money for the rebels, by kidnaping important people in the republic and ransoming them. He uses most of the money to buy the freedom of royalist rebels and fund other rebel activities