The Art and Science of Fencing by Nick Evangelista

In Captain Blood the fencing was more intricate and expertly staged than in earlier, silent films. The next wave of movies to feature fencing came in 1935, spurred on by Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood. The leading fencing masters working in films of this period were Henry Uttenhove and Fred Cavens. Other silent-film actors who fenced in their films with varying degrees of success included Ramon Novarro, Rudolph Valentino, and John Barrymore. Fairbanks’s best fencing films include The Three Musketeers (1921), Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), The Black Pirate (1926), and The Iron Mask (1929).

Fairbanks was the first to ask a fencing master to advise on a production, creating the first movie swordplay that actually resembled fencing. Before Zorro, movie fencing consisted of some fairly primitive blade whacking. From this moment on, fencing was associated with swashbuckling adventure. In 1920 Douglas Fairbanks’s silent film The Mark of Zorro gave the world a fresh image of the heroic swordsman. Sword fighting in the movies has been a primary source of the modern public’s awareness of fencing.

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The Art and Science of Fencing by Nick Evangelista