Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Jon Corelis The Flame and the Arrow is a classic Saturday matinée swashbuckler that doesn't try or pretend to be anything else, and as such it's one of the best of its genre. This 1950 technicolor feature rises above B status because of its incisive direction by Jacques Tourneur, a veteran Hollywood genre film maker best remembered for the noir classic Out of the Past and the horror classic Cat People, and also because of the spectacular athletics of an astonishingly youthful Burt Lancaster.There's also an effective sound track by major film composers Max Steiner; Virginia Mayo as the love interest stands around very prettily, which is about all you expect the female love interest in a movie like this to do. It's the sort of film you might have thought was the best movie ever made when you were fifteen years old, and can still enjoy fifty years later. It's available in various DVD releases; I saw it on the Turner Classics DVD, which was an OK transfer of a rather muddy print; this film should really be remastered and put on Blu-Ray.

bkoganbing Both this film and The Crimson Pirate established Burt Lancaster's reputation in the swashbuckling genre. When discussing Lancaster's career even with Oscar nominations and one Oscar for roles vastly different than who he plays in The Flame And The Arrow, I find it fascinating that so many still refer back to these films and label Lancaster a swashbuckling star like Errol Flynn.Taking place in medieval Lombardy, the province is part of the Holy Roman Empire and they have a particularly evil Hessian provincial governor in Frank Allenby, known as "the Hawk" for his partiality to falconry and for his rapacious designs. Five years before, Allenby just took for himself the bored wife of Burt Lancaster played by Lynne Baggett leaving him to raise their son Gordon Gebert.Now however Allenby at Baggett's suggestion comes in and takes Gebert away from a wounded Lancaster. Up to this time Lancaster has lived isolated in the mountains. Now he finally decides to join the rebels in revolt against Allenby and the Empire. Nothing like a little child stealing to provide motivation.Before taking up acting Lancaster and his partner Nick Cravat were circus performers and his natural abilities in that direction made producers want to cast him in films like The Flame And The Arrow. But Lancaster knew his talent and always tried and succeeded in getting better parts. He never did want to have the career of Errol Flynn.Burt also gets the opportunity to romance Allenby's niece Virginia Mayo who is being offered to a recently impoverished count Robert Douglas in the hopes of peace and unity. Douglas however is working an agenda all his own in The Flame And The Arrow. Mayo is curiously enough the mirror image of Baggett. She's bored with court life and finds certain attractions among the peasants especially the lusty and charismatic Lancaster.And Burt has the charisma going full blast in this film. As well he would have to, otherwise why would the peasants be following him. It's an expansive part and no one could be as expansive as Burt Lancaster when the part called for it.The Flame And The Arrow holds up well today. It should as it has a universal theme of a man protecting his child.

AsisSharab It is the best movie from my childhood. I love the 1950s and thats family movies. Burt Lancaster is one of the greatest movie stars and he plays perfect in this family action movie. He was (is) my Idol and of course Virginia Mayo is beautiful, soft and romantic and I love her too. Nick Cravat has always been one of my favorites. The Manus script is very good when we think about the replies and words. There is not a moment of dead, boring time in the hole movie's duration. Italian People like each other and fight together against the occupation force. It is a light family action with love, sympathy and honor. So I'm very glad now when I can watch this film again with DVD quality. I miss these great and lovely Stars very much.

MartinHafer While this isn't the best adventure film I have ever seen, it might just be the highest energy film and featured stunts you just won't see in films by Errol Flynn or Ronald Coleman. That's because the star, Burt Lancaster, does most of his own stunts--having been a circus performer in a previous career along with his partner, Nick Cravat! It's obvious that he is one of the most athletic leading men in history and apart from his film, TRAPEZE, it's the most incredible stunt-work you'll see him do on film. A couple years after making this film, Lancaster returned for THE CRIMSON PIRATE--a better film, but one that features less of the athleticism of THE FLAME AND THE ARROW. It is interesting that Lancaster's circus partner, Nick Cravat, also plays his best friend in this film and several others (such as THE CRIMSON PIRATE). Some of their stunt-work together is truly amazing.As far as the plot goes, it's a reworking of the Robin Hood story, but this time it's set in Lombardy (a region in North-central Italy that includes Milan) and the invaders are Hessians (from the region around Frankfurt, Germany). Apart from that, the story elements are very, very similar. Even the part played by Virginia mayo is a copy of Maid Marian from Robin Hood. However, despite being a bit recycled, the film is exciting and fun--if also a bit like "fluff". Good old fashioned, but not especially deep fun, it's a must for Burt Lancaster films--he's dynamite.