We have referenced Crossed Swords (1977) a handful of times on the blog, usually in the form of memes pointing out the absurdity of the French hood being worn by Raquel Welch as “Lady Edith,” but this film actually has quite decent costuming, and we should at least praise it for that.
The original title (and I’m assuming, the actual UK title) is The Prince and the Pauper, and is based on the novel by Mark Twain of the same name, but for reasons that are known only to American film distributers, it was renamed to the more exciting Crossed Swords. The film is set in the Tudor era and stars Mark Lester as Edward, Prince of Wales, and his doppelgänger, Tom, a street urchin. The rest of the cast is stuffed to the gills with mega talent, including Oliver Reed, Ernest Borgnine, George C. Scott, Rex Harrison, and Charlton Heston (as Henry VIII, natch).
The costumes were designed by Judy Moorcroft, whose only other credit I had seen was as the costumer for Yentl (1983). The costumes here are big, flashy, and pretty, which is really all that it takes to get my attention.
Have you seen Crossed Swords/The Prince and the Pauper (1977)? Tell us what you thought in the comments!
Anything with Oliver Reed channeling his inner Athos has my buy-in.
Turns out it’s on YouTube -adding it to my to watch list!
The reason this was renamed for U.S. release is simple– Disney did a 1962 adaptation of the same material as THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, which potentially could have been reissued at any time. CROSSED SWORDS was a safer title.
Re Mary Tudor being ‘erased from the narrative’; the fact is that she appears in the original book only twice, very briefly. The first consists of only this: “his ‘elder sister’—afterwards the ‘Bloody Mary’ of history—chilled him with a solemn interview which had but one merit in his eyes, its brevity”. The other is a bit longer: a paragraph of 112 words! Whereas Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey appear multiple times, are the hero’s friends, and have quite a bit to say for themselves.
And the historical Mary spent most of Edward’s reign on her own estates and rarely came to court, being well aware how anti-Catholic the regency council and Edward himself were (the two occasions Twain has his hero and Mary meeting are actually an exaggeration). So both in the book and in history there really isn’t anything to erase.