Last Picture Show

By Frank Rich

CROSSED SWORDS Directed by Richard Fleischer Screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser

Although there is nothing particularly memorable about this film, its title is sure to be a mainstay of trivia contests for years to come. Crossed Swords, as nasty fate would have it, is the last movie scheduled to play Manhattan's doomed Radio City Music Hall. The choice could not be more appropriate, for Crossed Swords is the quintessential Music Hall film: an undemanding, all-star family entertainment with period sets and costumes bathed in ersatz gold. It's perfect wallpaper for an art deco palace.

As such movies go, Crossed Swords is somewhat above the norm. Adapted from Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, it recounts a highly satisfying story in an amiable fashion. Though Screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser has replaced many of the novel's jokes with vaguely risque punch lines of his own, he has preserved the book's theme. By the time Prince Edward and London Slum Boy Tom Canty reclaim their rightful identities at the movie's end, the audience has been stirred by Twain's passionate devotion to democratic ideals.

Crossed Swords would be more amusing, no doubt, had it been directed by

Richard Lester, who collaborated with Fraser on The Three Musketeers. The chore has fallen instead to Richard Fleischer, who possibly took on this benign project as penance for giving the world Mandingo. Fleischer has staged the film's many chase scenes and sword fights in his characteristically witless manner, but at least he keeps the narrative rolling noisily along. He also makes the most of his mishmash of a cast. Rex Harrison (as the Duke of Norfolk) and Oliver Reed (as Miles Hendon) are endearing good guys; George C. Scott's dry impersonation of a vagabond king is the best thing in the film.

Even the wretched performances -- Mark Lester's prissy portrayal of the title roles aside -- are fun in their bizarre way. Ernest Borgnine yells out his lines in an un abashed American accent and bulges his eyes in every closeup, proving once again that he is the last word in screen vulgarity. His crass pyrotechnics are almost topped by Charlton Heston, who turns Henry VIII's death scene into a veritable anthology of hammy acting gestures. Raquel Welch, no fool, sees to it that she is more seen than heard.

Still, the various ups and downs of Crossed Swords are not important; the real issue raised by the film is why it was made at all. There just isn't much of a market for a movie like this in the U.S. any more: family films are too slow for adults and too tame for children raised on ABC sitcoms and Star Wars. By making a fetish of booking such movies, Radio City Music Hall has in effect willed its own death.

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