The Swordsman (1974 film)

The Swordsman, also known as Zapper's Blade of Veangeance, is a 1974 British action film directed by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Linda Marlowe, Alan Lake and Edina Ronay. It is a sequel to Big Zapper (1973) and follows the adventures of female private detective Harriet Zapper.

It was produced in 1974, including location shooting in the South of France around Nice. In 1976 it was picked up for release on the Odeon Circuit by Rank Film Distributors.

Plot
Reynaud Duval runs a fencing school, and wanting to be his father's sole heir, forces him to write a false will and then murders him. He leaves a note with the body which incriminates master swordsman Zendor. Duval's younger brother Karel hires detective Harriet Zapper and her Chinese side-kick Hock to investigate.

Cast

 * Linda Marlowe as Harriet Zapper
 * Alan Lake as Reynaud Duval
 * Jason Kemp as Karel Duval
 * Tony Then as Hock
 * Edina Ronay as Guy Champion
 * Noel Johnson as Christian Duval
 * Peter Halliday as Rabelais
 * Michael O'Malley as Gendarme
 * Graham Ashley as bar-fly
 * William Ridoutt as Inspector Cook
 * David Robb as Alex Zendor

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The Swordsman is remarkable only for the relentless consistency with which it apes the style of the more overblown TV commercials. Making pseudo-sophisticated hay of swashbuckling adventure, sub-Bond chicanery and the private eye thriller, the film is never more embarrassing than in its archly knowing references to other movies, from Bogart ... to Jane Russell. All of which, as the script labours over the slightest of exchanges and the plot staggers from implausibility to implausibility, only underlines ineptness of the present material."