THE SORCERESS

Now for years I had always suspected that the old Sorceress was inspired by something in an old horror comic, or possibly, given the sketchy style, that rarest of beasts in these decks: an original creation! However enlightenment came when I was enjoying a Bert I Gordon binge a couple of years ago. Now Gordon is most famous for his movies that featured things getting very large such The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth Vs the Spider and The Beginning of the End - living up to his initials of BIG! However he did produce other genre movies aside from his giant monster epics, and The Magic Sword from 1962 saw Gordon taking inspiration from the legend of St. George and the dragon to produce a fantasy flick for the children's market.

Now the movie tells of our hero George (Gary Lockwood) setting out with six knights to rescue a princess (Anne Helm) who is being held for ransom by the evil wizard Lodac, (the great Basil Rathbone). In classic folk tale fashion, the band of seven heroes face an assortment of different challenges, which will whittle down their numbers before reaching the final showdown with Lodac. And it is during one of these challenges in their quest that we encounter the model for the Sorceress!

So then in the movie, Sir Dennis of France is lured into a trap by the beautiful Mignonette, played by Danielle de Metz. However she is soon revealed to be a hideous hag bent on slaying him, played by Maila Nurmi, best known to fright fans as pioneering horror hostess Vampira. Actually Nurmi had appeared earlier in the movie as a sorceress, a confederate with Lodac in the kidnapping of the princess fair, and thanks to some green glowing eyes in both scenes we know it is the sorceress who is behind this transformation of the beauty into a crone. So then, here we have a card with an accurate title for a change!