Made in England this is a well remembered film – at least to me  it is – with Alan Ladd in good form.

My previous post showed Alan Ladd and his wife at the Royal Command Performance in 1948 but this was much later.  At this point in 1953 Alan Ladd had signed a film Deal with Warwick Films – and this was one of the ones he made here in England. Another was The Red Beret.

This is a great publicity shot that I have come across BELOW :-

Alan does not look too interested in this shot above  though.  Overall his performance  was pretty good but he did seem to have a laconic style which must have been appealing to Cinemagoers at that time because he had been so popular although this was towards the end of his peak film years.

The Black Knight was the third film of three that Alan Ladd did for Warwick that were released by Columbia in America. The first one, The Red Beret was a World War II story and he played  a Canadian to explain his non-British accent. The second, Hell Below Zero, was a modern story set on a whaling ship –  he played an American.

Director Tay Garnett handles the battle sequences in The Black Knight well  and the rest of the British cast were well up to the mark.

During filming at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, which began in September 1953  I always remember Dirk Bogarde saying that he talked with Alan Ladd in the Canteen at times and asked Alan what he had done that day to which he replied ‘ just a couple of good looks to the camera’ – and Dirk thought to himself that this was indeed a really good tip for film acting.     As Dirk said – Alan was a very experienced film actor and he his remark went right back to basics  – Don’t overplay things on screen’

Alan Ladd never did that – and he had a very long and successful film career.