Kind of sad to see that there are not many posts here re this incredible movie.
One of the most successful merging's of action and comedy ever done. Usually that is a kiss of death for me, but this movie pulls it off brilliantly somehow.
Acting and scenery superbly done.
And the fighting scenes seemed very realistic compared to most sword fighting movies.
I'm watching it now after not seeing it for years... and HELL YEAH IT'S JUST AS GOOD AS I THOUGHT IT WAS!!! Peerless film, makes all the other versions out there look like pathetic wastes of effort.
Absolutely perfect performances from York, Reed, and Dunaway, excellent work from most of the cast (Welch excepted), marvelous period details like Dunaway holding an orange studded with cloves in the city streets and shoving a busk down her corset, some of my favorite fight sequences of all time, and so on. The two films are ambitious as hell, they try for adventure, comedy, tragedy, suspense, drama... and succeed at it all. This is the kind of movie that justify the existence of Hollywood.
9.5 out of 10, with half a point off for Raquel Welch.