Quick! Name a movie star who played an armored Marvel superhero.
Oh, that’s easy.
Alan Ladd.
Well, not exactly, but a strong case can be made that Ladd’s Arthurian hero in the film The Black Knight inspired Marvel’s mid-1950s superhero of the same name.
The Columbia film was released Aug. 26, 1954, and the Marvel comic book was on the newsstands by January 1955 — perfect timing for the movie to have prompted the comic.
And in both cases, the protagonist was a dual-identity mystery man who sprang into action to protect King Arthur’s court from threats. Both characters even had a hawk as a chest insignia.
In the movie, John (Ladd) is a commoner, a blacksmith, who designs and dons his Black Knight guise to fight treacherous Saracens and Cornishmen who disguise themselves as Vikings to overthrow Arthur and Christianity.
“The fantasy in The Black Knight is the insertion of American values into the Arthurian legend,” noted Marvin Lee Dupree in his Medievalisms and Others: Exploring Knights and Vikings at the Movies. “During the production and release of the film The Black Knight, the political landscape was dominated by fears of potential spies and by Cold War anxieties. In his analysis of the film, Alan Lupack argues that John is symbolically representative of American values, which are under assault from foreign invaders; he even claims that the threat to Camelot is a thinly disguised allegory for the scourge of the Communist threat.”
“The Black Knight acknowledges class distinctions while creating a rags-to-riches fantasy in which virtue reigns supreme and inherited privilege is seen as effete,” noted Rebecca A. and Samuel A. Umland in their book The Use of Arthurian Legend in Hollywood Film. “That the hero may be of low blood … represents a modification of the formula intended to suit the sensibilities of a 20th-century American audience, one that values the democratic ideal and the myth of endless possibilities for anyone willing to work steadfastly toward a given goal.”
By contrast, the comic book Black Knight, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Joe Maneely, took his cue from the aristocratic Scarlet Pimpernel. Instead of Sir Percy Blakeney, he’s Percy of Scandia, a man summoned by Merlin to pose as a cowardly, well-born refugee seeking sanctuary in Camelot.
“Mordred’s followers will kill any who try to stop him,” Merlin explains. “He can only be defeated by one unsuspected, yet strong and unconquerable. That someone is you! As Percy of Scandia, a timid, harmless fool, you will learn many things.”
And when he needs to act on that knowledge, he will assume the identity of the Black Knight, using a sword and armor provided by Merlin.
“We did cover all the influences on the Timely/Atlas Black Knight some time back, and mentioned the movie then,” recalled Roy Thomas, speaking of his Alter Ego magazine. “Don’t recall if I ever saw it… certainly I didn’t remember it when I saw the comic. But it is quite close, apparently … surprised Stan didn’t at least change the name if he was going to swipe the theme. Still, the comic has had greater legs, through its influence on various characters.”
Marvel’s character only lasted for five sumptuously illustrated issues, as Thomas said, but reemerged in other iterations later.
In Tales to Astonish 52 (Feb. 1964), a 20th-century high-tech Black Knight on a winged horse battles Giant-Man and the Wasp.
Secretly a biologist, Nathan Garrett, this villainous Black Knight regrets his criminal action on his deathbed after being mortally wounded by Iron Man, and turns over the Black Knight legacy and his castle to his American nephew Dane Whitman.
Garrett and Whitman are revealed to be descendants of Sir Percy of Scandia, and Whitman discovers he is able to summon the spirit of the original Black Knight by lighting a “Brazier of Truth.” The ghost directs Whitman to the Ebony Blade, a sword forged by Merlin from star matter that confers invincibility upon those who are worthy to wield it.”
The Dane Whitman character has come full circle. Now set to debut in the Disney-Marvel movie universe, the character probably owes his real origin to the 1954 Black Knight of Hollywood.
“As an itinerant actor, donning the guise of arch villain Sir Palamides, I jousted with Alan Ladd within the massive castle walls of Manzanares el Real, Castilla el Nueva, Central Spain, and plotted against him in the forbidding granite palace of El Escorial,” recalled Peter Cushing in his memoirs.
The Black Knight was shot in Spain and at Pinewood Studios near Uxbridge.
“Having no car, I took the tube train from Kensington (where Helen and I lived) to Uxbridge, and then walked some three or four miles across fields and along country lanes to the studios,” Cushing wrote. “Returning home one evening, a sleek limousine pulled up beside me. Alan leaned out of the window and asked if he could give me a lift. I accepted gratefully, and asked to be dropped off at the station, but he insisted on driving me all the way to my doorstep before going on to the Savoy Hotel where he was staying. ‘Any time, Peter,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you’ll be worn out before we’ve finished the movie.’
“He was a shy, reserved person and this gesture was typical of his kind thoughts for others.”
Cushing had a lifelong boyish sense of fun, and he amassed a large collection of miniature soldiers and other figurines that he treasured.
“At the end of shooting, I presented him with a tiny replica of the Black Knight as a souvenir, which I’d had made by a modeler who specialized in miniatures,” Cushing recalled.
“Some months later, Alan wrote from Hollywood saying how grateful he was: ‘I’ve never had any hobbies until now, thanks to you. I’ve started collecting figurines and have already filled a large cabinet, representing uniforms throughout the ages.’”
About Author
