Don César de Bazan

I only acquired this on account of Freda's involvement, off "You Tube" of all places – which resulted in an unstable picture further marred by occasional audio drop-outs (though still much better than another Freda title I had tried watching during an earlier Easter marathon, THE IRON SWORDSMAN {1949}, which I eventually aborted after just a few minutes due to the wretched quality of the print)! However, it turned out to be a quite satisfying entertainment, a stylish costumer with equal parts romance, intrigue and action – to which must be added leading man Gino Cervi's spirited performance (a bit stout for a swashbuckling star, but he cuts a serviceable figure regardless). This would prove the actor's first of six films under Freda's guidance – including the two-part LES MISERABLES (1948).

The plot (co-scripted by Freda with Rossellini and De Sica regulars, Sergio Amidei and Cesare Zavattini, respectively) deals with Catalonia's attempts to secede itself from the Spanish empire, which the conspirators plan to do via a mystery woman's compromising of the current royal!; more complications arise when Cervi (as the titular nobleman, loyal to the throne) becomes enamoured of the girl. However, since she has no position in society, she is married off to the hero (in a ceremony where neither spouse, being segregated even in church, knows of the other's identity!) – condemned to death after the notoriously temperamental count is duped into a duel, which a court edict has deemed illegal.

A boy the protagonist had helped, though, loads the guns of the firing squad with harmless powder, so that Cervi survives to thwart the machinations and regain his loved one. Indeed, he manages first to destroy a massive load of gunpowder being smuggled in champagne barrels (with the innocent horses being sacrificed into the bargain!), then eliminates a treacherous minister and, finally, infiltrates the king's castle as part of a performing act (for the record, his devoted valet – a young Paolo Stoppa – is here the literal personification of the comic who wants to play Hamlet!) bound for an engagement therein. Needless to say, he faces off in a climactic swordfight – which only ends atop the castle battlements – with his long-standing French enemy and the brains of the whole scheme.