I wanted to love this film. After all, my favorite film for fun and adventure from the 1950s is 1958's "The Vikings". While this Richard Fleischer film is no masterpiece for the snobs out there, it IS exciting throughout--with more action and thrills than three typical action films. So, with this in mind, I was hoping to see the same sort of movie--filled with excitement aplenty. However, sadly, this was NOT the case. The entire movie seemed very, very talky (a Viking who talks?!) and a bit like a bad movie serial--with lots and lots of narrow escapes but not a lot of inspired action.
The film begins with Viking Richard Widmark in the middle of the Muslim empire. While it is a little-known fact that Vikings DID travel as far as the Mediterranean and the Muslim world, the combination seemed uninspired. And, to make it worse, the powerful Muslims seemed amazingly dumb--as they let the Vikings escape repeatedly. The only possible cool moment they COULD have had involved a fictional device called the "steel horse"--and they never exactly got around to actually using it on anyone but one of their own innocent men!! Duh.
The plot is a silly mess, as it supposedly involved an enormous golden bell that has NONE of the properties of real gold (see the GOOFS on IMDb for more). And, seeing Vikings in furs in the middle of the hot Middle East looking for Byzantine gold just seemed crazy. But, this MIGHT have worked if the film had been interesting or the characters compelling--which none of it ever was. So what you have is a pretty film with decent music but that is all. Too bad...Vikings should be fun and entertaining to watch.
By the way, while the film was far from great and the Vikings NEVER would have dressed in furs like this, I did at least appreciate that they did NOT have horns on their helmets--a modern myth about these Scandinavian warriors.
The film begins with Viking Richard Widmark in the middle of the Muslim empire. While it is a little-known fact that Vikings DID travel as far as the Mediterranean and the Muslim world, the combination seemed uninspired. And, to make it worse, the powerful Muslims seemed amazingly dumb--as they let the Vikings escape repeatedly. The only possible cool moment they COULD have had involved a fictional device called the "steel horse"--and they never exactly got around to actually using it on anyone but one of their own innocent men!! Duh.
The plot is a silly mess, as it supposedly involved an enormous golden bell that has NONE of the properties of real gold (see the GOOFS on IMDb for more). And, seeing Vikings in furs in the middle of the hot Middle East looking for Byzantine gold just seemed crazy. But, this MIGHT have worked if the film had been interesting or the characters compelling--which none of it ever was. So what you have is a pretty film with decent music but that is all. Too bad...Vikings should be fun and entertaining to watch.
By the way, while the film was far from great and the Vikings NEVER would have dressed in furs like this, I did at least appreciate that they did NOT have horns on their helmets--a modern myth about these Scandinavian warriors.