Film Snail

The Lady and the Bandit
The Lady and the Bandit

6.0

The Lady and the Bandit

NR·1951·79m

Summary

Highwayman Dick Turpin rides 200 miles to save his wife from the gallows in 18th-century England.

Crew

Director

Ralph Murphy

Screenplay

Robert Libott

Screenplay

Frank Burt

Story

Jack DeWitt

Story

Duncan Renaldo

Reviews

Geronimo1967

Geronimo1967

September 1, 2024

6

Dick Turpin's is one of those legends that should have fitted nicely with Louis Hayward's style of swashbuckling heroics. Plenty of opportunity to rob the wealthy that travel the as yet un-policed roads of 1730s England. Sadly, though, Ralph Murphy chooses to focus more on the romantic elements of his roguish subject and we are left with a rather slow moving melodrama. After one of his hold-ups, he meets and falls in love with "Joyce" (Patricia Medina), settles down to middle-class inn-keeping for a while before he goes back to his old ways with friend Tom King (Tom Tully). That's when he robs "Lord Willoughby" (Alan Mowbray) and relieves him of a document proving the existence of treason afoot - the price on his head rockets and his jealous friend "Cecile" (Suzanne Dalbert) sets about betraying him too. At times it is quite exciting - his break-neck race to York on "Black Bess", for example - but otherwise this just plods along with neither of the leading ladies having much on-screen charisma, nor dialogue to work with. Mowbray features sparingly as his foe and the direction is just, well, lacking... Hayward does try, but he has lost the glint from his eye and can't carry this all by himself as entertainingly he once could. I hadn't heard of this film before today, but after watching I'm afraid I am not really surprised.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

biography
dick turpin
highwayman