“In the areas surrounding the «national epic» a production is developing which, without renouncing educational values, emphasizes entertainment and takes up the methods of the film of cloak and dagger, coloring it with national dyes. The most significant title is «The Outlaws», a very popular series, telling the story of the bravery of the Wallachian «pardaillani», musketeers in yachts and vigilantes on their own, who “take from the rich to give to the poor”, put the fear of the rich in the hands of the poor, and then retire to the woods, leaving behind legends, women’s crying eyes, echoes of their parties with the pipers and their philosophy of the time of rest: «let everyone live, only we must not die!»”

“The Kidnapping of the Maidens” triggers an incursion of the hajduks into the underground of the Turkish fortress, while the confrontation between Amza and Pazvanoglu reaches its climax. The second episode of «The Outlaws» (in which Besoiu arbitrarily passes the role to Petruț) takes the form of a court intrigue dominated by the lust for gold and the thirst for greatness. Cocea and Barbu hesitate in their films between the formula of the cloak and dagger and that of the popular comedy full of snobbish and witty remarks. In this case, they prefer a picturesque tableau of manners, a pretext for religious processions and puppet panoramas, ancient wedding customs and rites of passage to Mohammedanism, visits to the palaces of Hangerli and the Pashas of Vidin. Unlike the first part, the movie no longer contains drama, just adventures. What’s worse is that it’s endowed with dialog of crypto-literary ambition in which even a reigning idiot nebbish expresses himself thus: «He is not my father! In me his blood does not hatch… » The presence of Olga Tudorache is remarkable. The movie brought 5,300,000 spectators.”

Film critic and journalist Călin Căliman has characterized the films in this series of hajduks as having an “attractive and well-articulated plot”, folkloric motifs and picturesque characters. Anița, played by Marga Barbu, is compared by the critic to a “marchioness of the hajduks” by analogy with the “marchioness of angels”, a famous French film character of the time.

“It’s clear that in the case of «The Kidnapping of the Maidens», the production budget was utilized with forethought and not smashed into megalomaniacal delirium. It’s pulpy like Robert Aldrich’s films, it takes into account the tragic and dramatic mores of the universal canon and, perhaps most importantly, along with «The Eruption» (1957, dir. Liviu Ciulei), about which I wrote here, it invites a study of sexuality represented in local film.”

“For one reason or another, the movie reminded me of the much-awarded Egyptian director Youssef Chahine; see, for example, ‘Earth’ (1969) and I think you’ll understand why.”