User Reviews

Tales of the Unexpected: The Vorpal Blade starts in the mid 80's as two German friends Karl Von Baden (Peter Cushing) & Winterluck (John Bailey) sit down & reminisce about the past. They remember the war & Von Baden's mind turns back to the 1920's where he attended Heidelberg college, he tells a story of a bully named Cassan (Anthony Higgins) who was the president of the White Core. Cassan finds his missus Eva (Kirstie Poolie) being pestered by Macker (Andrew Bicknell) one of the scummy Red Core members, Cassan challenges Macker to a sword duel & picks his second in command which happens to be Van Baden to defend the honour of himself, Eva & the entire White Core. With such weight on his shoulder's Von Baden confesses to Winterluck that he was scared & tells him a terrible secret he has been hiding for half a century...

Episode 8 from season 6 this Tales of the Unexpected story originally aired here in the UK during May 1983, the fifth of six Tales of the Unexpected episodes to be directed by John Jacobs I thought this one was quite good without being anything outstanding. The story by Edward D. Hoch was dramatised by Robin Chapman & this a more multi layered episode than usual, there's the wraparound footage set in the present & the main meat of the story set in the past. As usual for an episode of Tales of the Unexpected it all hinges on the twist ending & I'm pleased to report it's quite good & I also liked the fact that there was a double barrelled twist ending in the sense the story set in the past has a twist ending in it's own right & the framing story set during the present also has a nice little twist to round things off. The character's are good although I'm not quite sure who The Vorpal Blade was meant to appeal to as it's not horror, it's not really a thriller & it's too far fetched to be a drama so in that respect it's hard to categorise it but for what it is it's a harmless enough way to pass 25 minutes. For those who are interested the word 'Vorpal' was created by Lewis Carroll for the poem Jabberwocky & has since been used to mean 'deadly' or 'sharp' & may imply the blade has magical properties which is why many fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons use the term Vorpal Blade!

Tales of the Unexpected was a cheaply made British TV series & you can tell because it generally looks awful, this one being shot entirely on videotape. Having said that The Vorpal Blade is a period piece set largely in Germany during the 20's, unfortunately the sets look very fake & the costumes cheap. Don't even get me started on the cheapest looking army barricade I've ever seen either. Unusually for the family friendly Tales of the Unexpected there's a bit of blood in this & a naked girl. One of my very favourite actors Peter Cushing appears in this as a German war criminal (!) which means I maybe liked this a bit better than I otherwise might have because he's in it, I would watch a film just because he was in it.

The Vorpal Blade is an alright way to pass 25 minutes, I'm not quite sure who it was meant to appeal too but as a one off piece of TV entertainment it's above average. Not too bad at all I suppose.

I thought this was an intriguing entry for a Tale of the Unexpected, with something of a double twist to add to it's uniqueness. Oddly, this is the second time in two days where I've seen Peter Cushing portray a former Nazi. The other instance was a Season One episode from the Hammer House of Horror series in a story titled 'The Silent Scream'.

This one is told via present day and flashback sequences, as Cushing's character Von Baden, relates how a master swordsman in his World War II White Corps met his death after challenging a less accomplished fencer. Over the years, the legend of that duel was fraught with rumor and innuendo, with intimation that Von Baden's sponsor Cassan (Anthony Higgins) died from the cut of his opponent's poisoned sword. The irony of that event concerns the fact that the rival swordsman Macker (Andrew Bicknell) was initially designated to fight against Von Baden as Cassan's second, but at the last minute, Cassan's anger at Macker surged and he decided to take the fight himself.

With the passage of decades, Von Baden decides he no longer needs to hide the truth of the event, and confesses to his companion Winterluck (John Bailey) that the blade that killed Cassan was indeed poisoned, but it was the one Cassan himself was using. Poisoned by Von Baden himself for use against Macker, when the blade suddenly broke during their sparring, the fragment cut his forehead, leading to his death a few moments later. Von Baden's fear of dueling Macker resulted in the inadvertent end to Cassan's life, a terrible secret he had held for many years.

Not that Von Baden wasn't punished for the deception, but as a Nazi war criminal, the story closes with him and Winterluck returning to their prison cells, sentenced for their war crimes. This second revelation of the story added just another level of poignancy to a story well regarded as an unusual Tale of the Unexpected.

Two elderly gentlemen are sat reminiscing, Von Baden is telling former colleague Winterluck a tale from his youth in Heidelberg. Almost fifty years ago the pair were students, Von Baden recounts the story of fellow student Cassan, a bully and sadist, with a love for the beautiful but dubious Eva. When Eva is caught in Macker's arms, Cassan puts Von Baden up to challenge him, with swords. It's Cassan however that fights, and there's a tragedy in waiting.

The Vorpal Blade is a highly rated and very well regarded episode, I can understand why there's a lot of love for it, good production values, Peter Cushing, a fairly good story, for me though it's just a little bit flat, a bit drawn out. It's a bit Roy of the overs in parts, the scenes with Peter Cushing an John Bailey chatting are great, the rest is just a bit average.

5/10