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Trial by Combat (1976)
Director: Kevin Connor
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
An awkward line-up of stars adds little lustre to this tediously derivative, vaguely black comedy. The plot, cobbled together by several writers who seem to have been set to produce an Avengers spin-off, revolves creakingly around the attempts of an eccentric, unflappable ex-policeman (Mills) to link a series of underworld killings to an upper-crust fancy-dress society of knights (led by Pleasence), originally dedicated to the ideals of medieval chivalry. The action sequences - on which all attention is presumably meant to focus in compensation for the numbing silliness of the rest of the movie - consist of knights on horseback, brandishing lances, chasing a car across country in hopes of impaling an East End villain (Glover), plus interminable clanking sword fights, the last of which ends with Pleasence impaled on his own portcullis.Author: JPy
Cast & crew
Director: Kevin Connor
Producer: Fred Weintraub, Paul Heller
Cast: John Mills, Donald Pleasence, Barbara Hershey, David Birney, Margaret Leighton, Peter Cushing, Brian Glover full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 90 mins
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