&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/99463?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Swords+on+screen%3A+loving+a+swash+well+buckled%3AArticle%3A1646514&amp;ch=Film&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Film%2CCulture%2CAction+and+adventure+%28Film+genre%29&amp;c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&amp;c6=Anne+Billson&amp;c7=11-Oct-14&amp;c8=1646514&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Feature%2CComment&amp;c11=Film&amp;c13=Anne+Billson+on+film+%28series%29&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FFilm%2FAction+and+adventure&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;Action films should regress to an epoch when swords were as prevalent as guns, or forward to a time when firearms don&#039;t work&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another year, another musketeers movie. What a shame no one thought of rereleasing &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thomasspurlin.com/2011/08/classic-musings-threefour-musketeers-73.html&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Richard Lester&#039;s two-parter&lt;/a&gt;, or even &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6prWV23jAw&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;the MGM version&lt;/a&gt; with Gene Kelly. But no, swashbuckling on its own is no longer deemed enough to hold the attention of today&#039;s fidgety kids, so Paul WS Anderson gussies up his &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/mar/30/three-musketeers-3d-trailer&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Three Musketeers&lt;/a&gt; with 3-D, slo-mo and ninja skills. Phew! No danger of us getting bored there, then!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I love swordfights and want to see more of them, preferably not obscured by bells and whistles. Lester&#039;s Musketeer films have some cracking examples, mostly lighthearted, though slapstick gives way to a deadly serious duel towards the end, which goes on for so long that Michael York and Christopher Lee end up tottering with exhaustion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That fight choreographer, William Hobbs, was also behind one of the best screen swordfights: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtPluUi0_U&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;the end of the otherwise humdrum Rob Roy&lt;/a&gt; pits heroic, lumbering Liam Neeson, in big blouse and kilt, against Tim Roth as a psychopathic fop called Archie, a master swordsman. The match is unequal, but the action is terrific, and only ends when one man breaks the rules &ndash; or at least the rules as I remember them quoted by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CL8mh_4-0s&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook&lt;/a&gt;, in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Swords are sexier than guns, and not just because they&#039;re longer phallic symbols. Any idiot can fire a gun, but it takes training to wield a rapier. The best duels are like games of chess with extra sadism &ndash; why dispatch opponents quickly when you can humiliate them with your footwork, or inflict death by a thousand cuts? Duelling can be a substitute for sex &ndash; and not just the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9as3GwRpFk&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;seductive fence-off&lt;/a&gt; between Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in The Mask of Zorro; check out Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, smiling at each other during their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uog-mJYyloQ&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;duel on the beach in Captain Blood&lt;/a&gt;. It&#039;s enough to make you sorry for Olivia de Havilland.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;No one cries &quot;Ha haa!&quot; during a sword-fight quite like Rathbone, reportedly the best fencer in Hollywood, though owing to story demands, he won only one of his on-screen duels. But he provided brilliant opposition for Flynn (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L10fR31jC1w&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Adventures of Robin Hood&lt;/a&gt;), Tyrone Power (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McDfLkLqJAE&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Mark of Zorro&lt;/a&gt;) and Danny Kaye (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSNGeazCW6I&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Court Jester&lt;/a&gt;). The other man all these fights had in common was fencing master &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-sword-choreographers.html&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Fred Cavens&lt;/a&gt;, also responsible for the seven-minute thriller in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFhfKcwbw5k&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Scaramouche&lt;/a&gt; in which Stewart Granger (wearing slightly distracting stripy tights) and Mel Ferrer swipe at each other all over a theatre.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scaramouche is particularly pleasing from a swordlover&#039;s point of view since Granger has to train hard to match the skills of his arch enemy. Training is also featured in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118756/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Le Bossu&lt;/a&gt;, Philippe de Broca&#039;s 1997 version of the oft-filmed Paul F&eacute;val novel, with Vincent Perez enjoying his finest hour as the Duc de Nevers, whose family&#039;s trademark attack, &quot;la botte de Nevers&quot;, entails sticking your blade into a spot between your opponent&#039;s eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like other martial arts, swordplay is as much about restraint as brute force. While the duelling in Japanese chambara is of a different order to Hollywood swashbuckling, it illustrates perfectly how apparent inaction is as important as action, when swordsman Seiji Miyaguchi (coolest of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/76377/seven-samurai&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Seven Samurai&lt;/a&gt;) fells his blustering challenger with one movement. Or when the showdown between  Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai in Sanjuro involves 30 seconds of intense staring before a single thrust unleashes a geyser of blood.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would like to see action films regress to an epoch when swords were as prevalent as guns, or maybe hop forward to a time where firearms, for whatever reason, don&#039;t work. (And no, I&#039;m sorry, but light sabres don&#039;t cut it.) Maybe it&#039;s time actors were taught how to fence again, so their prowess doesn&#039;t have to be cobbled together in the editing room. It doesn&#039;t hurt that fencing can also be as graceful as dancing. As Rathbone said: &quot;I would not put it under the category of sport; I would put it under the category of the arts.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/actionandadventure&quot;&gt;Action and adventure&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/annebillson&quot;&gt;Anne Billson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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