Great Britain's notorious Danziger Brothers--that country's answer to Sam Katzman--have turned out yet another chintzy, cheap-looking time-waster. "The Spanish Sword" is a listless, slow-moving story of a knight who tries to thwart the plans of a greedy, rapacious baron. This is not one of writer Brian Clemens' finest hours, to say the least--his script is talky and cliché-ridden, with no feeling whatsoever for the times (11th-century England) and director Ernest Morris doesn't do any better on his end; the film moves like molasses and what passes for "action" scenes are tired, perfunctory and poorly staged. Performances by the largely unknown cast range from amateurish to hammy, except for veteran character actor Nigel Green, here playing the villain and trying to overcome the lousy script and poor direction but not having much luck. Star Ronald Howard looks like he wandered in from another picture and is trying to figure out what he's doing there. Leading lady June Thorburn doesn't acquit herself particularly well; the script didn't give her much to do, but she didn't do very much with what little she was given.
Overall, this is a pretty lame programmer, boring and predictable, with not much going for it. Skip it.
