| The Flashing Blade | |
|---|---|
| Format | Drama |
| Starring | Robert Etcheverry Jacques Balutin Denise Grey Genevieve Casile Jean Martinelli |
| Country of origin | France UK |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | UK BBC One |
| Original airing | 1967 |
The Flashing Blade (Le Chevalier Tempête) is a French television serial made in the late 1960s, which was broadcast in the UK on BBC children's television during the 1960s, with several re-runs in the 1970s.
Dubbed from French into English, the action was set in 17th century France, during the War of the Mantuan Succession (1628–1631) between France and Spain and its allies including the Duchy of Savoy. The series of 12 episodes of 22 minutes each, cut from the original four 75-minute episodes[1] involved the besieged French garrison in the city of Casale, which was the capital of Montferrat on the Savoie (Savoy) border. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy laid siege to Casale but was defeated by French troops on 18 March 1629. The series revolves around the efforts of a dashing spy to engineer the garrison's rescue.
It was perhaps most notorious for the fact that on its last two (conventional) broadcasts, the final episode lost vision through an apparent fault with the film stock;[1] a considerable disappointment to its viewers after it had been running for many episodes over many weeks. The final few minutes of the last episode were later shown on Michael Aspel's "request a repeat" show Ask Aspel.
Contents |
The theme song was "Fight"[1] by The Musketeers (written by Alex Masters), which was issued on a Philips single in 1969.
In 1988, the series was re-dubbed by Andrew O'Connor, Kate Copstick, Bernadette Nolan and Terry Randall to produce a spoof version, which was broadcast on the children's Saturday morning show On the Waterfront. The scripts for the new comic soundtrack were written by the latterly award-winning dramatist Russell T Davies.[2] This team reunited in 1995 for a one off episode that was broadcast on Children's BBC for Red Nose Day.
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Robert Etcheverry | The Chevalier de Recci (Francois) |
| Denise Grey | La Comtesse – The Duchess |
| Jacques Balutin | Guillot |
| Genevieve Casile | Isabelle de Sospel |
| Jean Martinelli | Duke de Sospel |
| Mario Pilar | Don Alonso |
Several cast members from The Flashing Blade appeared in similar serialised action productions for French children's TV. Desert Crusader was virtually identical to The Flashing Blade but set in 12th century Palestine during the Third Crusade. The Aeronauts was set in the present day and featured a couple of daring French Air Force Mirage fighter pilots.