The Prisoner of Zenda (1952, MGM, dir. Richard Thorpe, novel by Anthony Hope) may be the first movie I ever saw (with my parents). A would-be king is kidnapped and the crown will go to an younger brother, and there is a cousin around for an impersonation. This is a colorful swashbuckler. The plot was the kind that was popular in European fiction in the 19th Century. Somehow this film reminds me of the novels of Thomas B. Costain (like The Moneyman, 1947) about a Middle Ages "day trader". I remember the line 'Agnes Sorel is going to die.'
Classic movie trailer follows.
The Blazing Forest (1952, Paramount, dir. Edward Ludwig) An early firefighting tale that would anticipate the weather problems in the West today with global warming, although the film is thought of as routine. Early technicolor. John Payne was the lead I don't understand the following trailer being in black and white when I remember it being in garish technicolor. Again, an early visit to the movies with parents.
The Pathfinder (1952, Columbia, dir. Sidney Salkow, novel by James Fenimore Cooper) was one of the first movies I saw. A white man raised by Indians spies for the British against the French in the French and Indian Wars. George Montgomery stars. Technicolor, becoming common for action movies at that time. Cooper's plots were quite intricate, even if the historical situations don't seem as relevant today. In junior English in high school I wrote a term paper on Cooper's treatment of women in his novels and got an A on it. I remember the visits to the DC Public Library then by bus.
Now that I cogitate, I remember reading the subsequent novel The Deerslayer (among the 'Leatherstocking Tales') for a book report in the winter of Junior English, maybe in Feb. 1960 at the same time I was working on my piano sonata. I remember a scene about an ark on a lake hidden in the woods. (Yes, I suspect that The John Fish has read it!)
The trailer for the 52 film doesn't seem to be out there. What follows is the trailer for the 1994 Hallmark film.