PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Deedee I have always loved this film for its fairy tale quality. Sure Power is mature to play a student--IMO, the screenwriters, producers and director are to blame for not coming up with a script adjustment--but he is a highly romantic leading man, who is wonderful to look at and fully invested in the action. He is marvelous as well at connecting throughout with all the other actors as he always does. It should be noted that Jack Hawkins is too old for his role, too. In the book and in the film the character of Tris is also a student and contemporary of Power's character. But what of it? He's great and he and Power have good "buddy film" chemistry. In addition to the two wonderful leads,The Black Rose has a nice cast of supporting actors, an attractive score, and lavish sets and costumes to illustrate this purely fanciful story. I personally like Orson Wells only in minor roles such as this one, since for my taste he tends to overact and chew the scenery. Cecile Aubrey, the female lead is unusual and plays it rather naive, but it fits well with her odd character. I recommend The Black Rose to anyone who likes old time movies that transport you to far away places and times.

inspectors71 Henry Hathaway's dull, episodic, and talky The Black Rose does have the distinction of making me want to visit England. It appears to be a lovely land, but all the blather spouted by Jack Hawkins, Tyrone Powers, Cecile Aubrey, and Orson Welles about this, that, and your England, the discount psychology, the ridiculous accents, the over-complicated derring-do-very-little make this 1950 costumer almost unwatchable. I actually was talking to the screen during this interminable Normans versus Anglo-Saxons versus Muslims versus Mongols versus Chinese mishmash. "C'mon, already!I was hoping for something even a smidgen lively. What I got was a tedious exercise, with a college-educated dip (Powers) bailing on his homeland, traveling half way across the world to find a winning cause, acting bipolar with his BFF, and generally setting Anglo-Sino relations back 800 years. Yawn.

bawdybill I can't believe I'm the only one who has read the book!. And, boy, was it different. Read before the movie was made, too.But, as to the movie and considering how the film industry takes all kinds of liberties when transferring story to film it was a pretty good spectacle. Older folks will recall the "spectacles" with their "casts of thousands" etc. Okay. Jack was an alright Tristam, but in the book he became outlawed in England and died as such (from starvation, as I recall); the girl was oriental and followed Walter back to England separately. As I recall, all she could say was "Walter" and "London", but it got her back to Walter and the folks at Gurnie who had all turned merchants and were producing linen paper, etc. from tricks Walter learned in the far east.The book was so much better than the movie, especially since your can cast your own stars (if you want) and the author usually gives you pretty good descriptions of his characters. Sadly, no one in the movie comes close to my idea of what the characters looked like.

gazzo-2 What a strange movie. Check this cast-Tyrone Power playing a 36 year old college student(!), Jack Hawkins as Little John, Orson Welles as a Genghis Khan type(!?) enroute to sack China and/or bring some tribute to Kublai Khan, Herbert Lom(!!) in a cameo as a caravan-head, Michael Rennie in a two-season wrap-around cameo as King Ed, and some 14 year old blonde French lass who was shockingly 22(!) at the time-you could fooled me.I donno quite what to make of it-nice desert filming, odds and sodds casting, a war is on but all you ever see is some smoke billowing off in the distance of some 'burning city', they wind up in China and then have to sneak out. Hawkins ends up dead-but you are also left hanging as to whatever happened to the girl.Those last two scenes-King Ed forgives him for everything he said, Power does his Marco Polo bearing gifts and kick starting the rennaisance in the UK some 200 years early--ooo here's gun powder! here's the Printing Press! here's the compass!, only to be met by two armor-plated Mongol knight doubling as Western Union reps(!) all the way from China(?!), bearing the girl and a message from Orson.Like I said, very, very strange. It's worth seeing just because, but-don't expect to see a war movie, that's not this.**1/2 outta ****