Ladyhawke (film)

This article is about the 1985 film. For the musician known as Ladyhawke, see Ladyhawke (musician). For her debut album, see Ladyhawke (album).

Ladyhawke
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Richard Donner
Screenplay by	Edward Khmara Michael Thomas Tom Mankiewicz David Peoples (uncredited)
Story by	Edward Khmara
Produced by	Richard Donner Lauren Shuler
Starring	Matthew Broderick Rutger Hauer Michelle Pfeiffer Leo McKern John Wood
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Edited by	Stuart Baird
Music by	Andrew Powell
Production companies	Warner Bros. 20th Century Fox Lauren Shuler Production
Distributed by	Warner Bros. (North America) 20th Century Fox (International)
Release date	April 12, 1985 (1985-04-12) (United States)
Running time	121 minutes
Countries	United States Italy United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$20 million
Box office	$18.4 million

Ladyhawke is a 1985 medieval fantasy film directed and produced by Richard Donner and starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. The story is about a young thief who becomes unwillingly involved with a warrior and his lady who are hunted by the Bishop of Aquila. As he learns about the couple's past and secret, he chooses to help them overcome the Bishop's forces, and to lift an infernal curse.

In the same year, Joan D. Vinge published a novelization of the film, also titled Ladyhawke.

Plot

In medieval Italy, Phillipe Gaston, a thief known as "The Mouse", is captured and sentenced to death, but escapes from the Bishop of Aquila's dungeons through the sewers. He is apprehended at an inn by Captain Marquet and the Bishop's guards. Former captain Etienne Navarre arrives on the scene; he and his pet hawk attack the guards, then escape with Phillipe.

Navarre and Phillipe ask for lodging at a farmer's barn. At dusk, the farmer ambushes Phillipe with an axe, but is killed by an enormous black wolf. Phillipe runs back to the barn to get Navarre's help, but instead finds a beautiful young woman dressed in Navarre's cloak, who calmly approaches the wolf and walks into the woods with it.

The next day, Navarre reveals he needs Phillipe as part of a plan to kill the evil Bishop of Aquila. Phillipe refuses, so Navarre ties him to a tree. That night, the young woman reappears, and Phillipe tricks her into cutting his bonds. He flees, but is recaptured by Marquet and the guards, who learn Navarre's location from him. Navarre once again fights off Marquet and his men to free Phillipe; in the process, his hawk is shot with an arrow.

Traveling slowly due to injuries of his own, Navarre orders Phillipe to go on ahead of him and take the hawk to the castle of an old monk named Imperius. Phillipe obeys, and Imperius sequesters the hawk in a locked room. Later that evening, Phillipe picks the lock and discovers the young woman, now with an arrow protruding from her chest. After Imperius treats her wounds, he explains to Phillipe that the woman is Isabeau of Anjou, who once refused the Bishop's unwelcome advances. After learning from a drunken Imperius that Navarre and Isabeau were married, the Bishop called down a satanic curse upon them, dooming them to be "always together, yet eternally apart". Navarre therefore takes the shape of a wolf each night, while Isabeau becomes a hawk by day.

The bishop's guards attack the castle shortly before daybreak, but the sunrise turns Isabeau back into a hawk, allowing her to fly to safety. Navarre catches up to the castle and dispatches the last of the guards; Imperius tells him that the curse can be broken if the couple both face the Bishop as humans on "a day without a night and a night without a day" within three days time. Navarre dismisses Imperius as an old drunk, and continues his way to Aquila, intent on simply killing the Bishop for revenge. Phillipe volunteers to join Navarre and "Ladyhawke", and bids Imperius to follow them.

After the group survives an encounter with the Bishop's hired wolf-trapper Cezar, and several other adventures, Phillipe finally convinces Navarre to try to break the curse before killing the bishop. When the group arrives at Aquila, Navarre, seeing no divine signs in the sky, once again decides to kill the Bishop, and orders Imperius to euthanize the Isabeau-hawk if the church bells ring, as this would signal Navarre's failure.

Phillipe, having snuck back into Aquila through the sewers, infiltrates the cathedral and unlocks its doors. Navarre rides in and duels with Marquet; suddenly noticing a solar eclipse, Navarre realizes Imperius was right, but fails to stop the Bishop's men from ringing the bells. Believing that Imperius has slain Isabeau, Navarre continues his fight and eventually kills Marquet.

As Navarre is about to strike down the Bishop, a human Isabeau enters the cathedral and stops him. Together, they face the Bishop, breaking the curse. The maddened Bishop tries to kill Isabeau, only to die by Navarre's sword. Isabeau and Navarre thank Phillipe and Imperius, and finally embrace in joy.

Cast

• Matthew Broderick as Phillipe Gaston, an escaped young christian thief known as "The Mouse".
• Rutger Hauer as Etienne of Navarre, the former captain of the guard of Aquila, who is hunted by the Bishop and cursed to be a wolf by night.
  • Akeela, Kollchek, Levi, and Sasha—a quartet of melanistic Siberian wolves—as Navarre's lupine form.
• Michelle Pfeiffer as Isabeau of Anjou, the Comte d'Anjou's daughter, who is hunted by the Bishop and cursed to be a hawk by day.
  • Gift (c. 1979 – 2 or 3 December 2014) and Ladyhawke (d. May 2007) (named Spike II until 2000)—two female red-tailed hawks—as Isabeau's avian form.
• Leo McKern as Imperius, an old monk living in a ruined castle who used to serve the Bishop.
• John Wood as the Bishop of Aquila, who is obsessed with killing Navarre and capturing Isabeau.
• Ken Hutchison as Captain Marquet, the current captain of the guard.
• Alfred Molina as Cezar, a wolf trapper who serves the Bishop.
• Giancarlo Prete as Fornac, a guard lieutenant.
• Loris Loddi as Jehan, a guard lieutenant.

Production

Torrechiara, province of Parma, the movie's castle

The castle of Rocca Calascio in Abruzzo, where the priest Imperius hosts the protagonists to heal them.

Richard Donner had attempted to get the film financed for a number of years and came close to making it twice, once in England and once in Czechoslovakia. He eventually got the project up at Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, where it was green-lit by Alan Ladd Jr. Originally, Kurt Russell was cast as the male lead alongside Michelle Pfeiffer. The role of the pickpocket was offered to Sean Penn and then Dustin Hoffman, before Donner decided to go with Matthew Broderick. Eventually, Russell pulled out during rehearsals, and Rutger Hauer was chosen to replace him.

Writer Edward Khmara stated "The story of two lovers kept apart by taking human form only at opposite times of day was an inspiration that occurred to me while jogging on the roof of the Hollywood YMCA. The studio contention that 'Ladyhawke' is based on an old legend is, in fact, a violation of Writers Guild rules, since it denies me full rights of authorship. The Guild undertook an action against Warner Bros, on this account … and a small amount of money was paid as compensation ... Warner Bros., or its publicity department, continues to circulate material restating the old legend story. The inspiration for the character of Phillipe the Mouse was Francois Villon. His 'Testament' recounts his imprisonment and mistreatment by Bishop Thibault d'Aussigny, in the dungeons of Meung. When the Dauphin, soon to be Louis XI of France, passed through Meung on his way to the coronation, he freed the prisoners, including Villon. This incident was actually used in the original story of 'Ladyhawke.'"

Filming locations

Ladyhawke was filmed in Italy; the Apennine meadow of Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo served as a prominent exterior location, while the monk scene was filmed at Rocca Calascio, a ruined fortress on top of a mountain, not far from real-world L'Aquila. In the region of Emilia-Romagna, the town of Castell'Arquato in the province of Piacenza and castle of Torrechiara in the province of Parma were also featured. Other Italian locations used include Soncino in the Lombardy region, Belluno in the Veneto region, and the Lazio region around Viterbo.

Soundtrack

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	link

Andrew Powell composed the score, and it was produced by Alan Parsons. Richard Donner stated that he was listening to The Alan Parsons Project (on which Powell collaborated) while scouting for locations, and became unable to separate his visual ideas from the music. Powell combined traditional orchestral music and Gregorian chant with contemporary progressive rock–infused material. At the time, it was part of a trend among 1980s fantasy films of abandoning the lush orchestral scores of composers such as John Williams, James Horner, and Jerry Goldsmith in favor of a modern pop/rock sound. The soundtrack album was released in 1985 and re-released with additional tracks in 1995. On February 10, 2015, a two-disc set was released by La-La Land Records; it includes previously unreleased music and bonus tracks and was limited to 3,000 units.

The film soundtrack, composed by Andrew Powell, has met some criticism, with some saying the synthesizer laden track is incongruous for a medieval-themed movie, while others were more critical, with one reviewer calling it the "cream of the crop when it comes to atrocious scores" and another saying it sounded like an "exercise video that got played on top of a low budget '80s sitcom". It has been placed at the top of a list of worst movie soundscores, and appears on three other lists of bad movie music. Another commentator calls it one of the most "widely mocked soundtracks in the history of film".

Powell has commented on the poor reception to the soundtrack, explaining that he did not in fact use a lot of rock music in it, and that the criticism was not warranted because even a "classical" soundtrack would still be anachronistic. He has not worked on many film soundtracks since.

Reception

Box office

The film was a box-office disappointment, grossing around $18.4 million against a $20 million budget and ranking 48th for the year at the North American box office.

Critical response

Ladyhawke has a rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 30 critics' reviews. The site's consensus states: "There's pacing problems, but Ladyhawke has an undeniable romantic sweep that's stronger than most fantasy epics of its ilk."

Vincent Canby in The New York Times called the film "divided against itself", and went on to say that "scenes of high adventure or of visual splendor... are spliced between other scenes with dialogue of a banality that recalls the famous Tony Curtis line, 'Yondah lies my faddah's castle.'" Time Out called it "all rather facile sword-and-sorcery stuff, of course, but at times very funny... and always beautifully photographed". Variety described the film as a "very likeable, very well-made fairytale... worthwhile for its extremely authentic look alone". Siskel and Ebert both gave the film positive "thumbs up" reviews on their syndicated television show and thought Ladyhawke was beautifully filmed with the potential to achieve lasting success as a classic in its genre. Siskel's only major complaint was that Broderick's role was almost anachronistic in his 1980s-style jokes, while Ebert felt Broderick's comedic elements were fitting.

The New York Times singled out Matthew Broderick's skill in coming "very close to transforming contemporary wisecracks – particularly, his asides to God – into a more ageless kind of comedy", and said of Michelle Pfeiffer that her "presence, both ethereal and erotic, is so vivid that even when she's represented as a hawk, she still seems to be on the screen". Variety praised the casting of the lead actors, considering Pfeiffer "perfect as the enchanting beauty". Time Out called Rutger Hauer "camp" and Pfeiffer "decorative".

Colin Greenland reviewed Ladyhawke for Imagine magazine, and stated that "a singular tale of witchcraft, love and courage, with a fascinating idea that it almost makes the most of".

Accolades

Ladyhawke was nominated for two Academy Awards, in the categories of Best Sound (Les Fresholtz, Dick Alexander, Vern Poore and Bud Alper) and Best Sound Effects Editing (Bob Henderson and Alan Murray), winning neither. It won a Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film, and was nominated in the categories of Best Actress (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Best Music (Andrew Powell).

See also

• List of films featuring eclipses

External links

• Ladyhawke at IMDb
• Ladyhawke at Movie Review Query Engine
• Ladyhawke at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ladyhawke at Box Office Mojo