Royal Flash (1975)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Plot: A cowardly Englishman is kidnapped by Otto Bismarck and forced to impersonate the king of a small country.This is the third of four collaborations between director Richard Lester and screen writer George MacDonald-Fraser, combining the former's manic energy and ad-libbed humour with the latter's skill at weaving an adventure tale. The story is essentially a re-mix of 'The Prisoner of Zenda', with the addition of a historical background (the 1848 Revolutions and Otto Bismarck's attempts to unify Germany). The genius of the Flashman protagonist (this is adapted from a terrific series of books) is that in public he is a war hero but in private he is a lecherous coward. Cue instant entertainment (with a uniquely reluctant hero) as he is dragged into the dangerous plot. Fans of the novels have quite rightly complained that Malcolm McDowell isn't dark or beefy enough for the character - but it doesn't much matter as he turns in a terrific performance anyway. The film is full of good actors (David Jason, Bob Hoskins, Oliver Reed) who are uniformly excellent, with even Britt Ekland doing a stand-up job. This ability extends to every other part of the production. The locations and costume are stunning and unusual - Victorian Mitteleurope looking beautiful and strangely exotic (to this Englishman). The key however is the plot, which is stuffed with intrigue, love-affairs, pursuits, assassinations, humour and darn good characters. Also look out for much period-authentic slang and all sorts of odd historically accurate details. The 1970s was also a perfect time for such a film, with social rebellion breaking down the stuffiness of many prior historical films, yet without the stultifying political correctness present in so many modern historical films. It zips along with pace, making best use of the historical background to magnify the drama (zip-wiring down a telegraph line) until it's thoroughly satisfying conclusion.Worth two or more viewings.

First and foremost- This movie is enormous fun.If you're a fan of the books (as I am - and if you're not then I heartily recommend them) then this film admirably captures the sense of fun and adventure that the books have. It has a lot of slap stick in it which doesn't necessarily translate well from the books, but it does capture a sense of (for lack of a better term) light-hearted love of fun that is pure seventies and just would not and could not be replicated now. Cinema just isn't in the right frame of mind for this anymore. It's either too serious or too dumb but it couldn't achieve this in it's wildest dreams in these morose joyless days.Malcolm McDowell is young and at the top of his game as his charismatic persona in "A Clockwork Orange". Olly Reed is pure, toe cringing (but love-him-really) badness as Otto Von Bismark. There's so much comedy but there are also scenes where your swashes will never be so buckled! Don't expect a Citizen Kane or anything even remotely close, just sit back and enjoy a classic "Saturday afternoon" romp (and never has a word been so well used) through a classic Flashman story- great baddies, exotic foreign locales and wenches ripe for Flash's advances! Enormous fun if you approach it in the right frame of mind- it will leave you shouting HUZZAR!

No one is a greater fan of Geroge Macdonald Fraser's Flashman papers than I am.I was surprised to see just now that Richard Lester directed Royal Flash, since I also see he had made the Three/Four Musketeers with Fraser which I though turned out rather well.Not so Royal Flash.I was 12 years old when the film was released and could not have been more enthusiastic since I had read all the Flashman papers published up to that time, and was intoxicated with A Clockwork Orange and Malcolm MacDowel (I still am, but he was never really given a chance after that).What a disappointment (I saw it once again when I was about 20 on television and it seemed even worse).None of the sharp dialogue in the books is transfered to the screen. The comedy of Flashman's character seemed to me to have been mishandled in about the same way one could imagine a group of high school students trying to parody it would do. The dueling and fencing was awful and undramatic.Looking back with more mature eyes, the film failed completer to exploit the possibilities of direct satire of earlier film versions of the Prisoner of Zenda.If you have read the book and not seen the film, I can only say that the film ends with Flashman and Rudi von Starnberg becoming fast friends and playing a game Rudi has just invented: Russian roulette.A pathetic betrayal of everything the books are about.My comments would be more direct if I had seen the film more recently, but I am glad I have not.If by any chance Fraser ever reads this, I can only say I think he is a genius--perhaps the greatest comic novelist of his generation, but, based on my appreciation of that corpus of work, it as hard to believe that he wrote the screenplay of this film, as that he did all those awful Roger Moore James Bond films.

Lots of laughs in this zany Brit comedy in which Malcolm McDowell plays a worthless, womanizing jerk whom is cruelly used in a political scheme by evil Count Von Bismarck in order to overthrow a rival country. I don't usually care for British comedy but this one was way good: slapstick all the way.