The Vikings was an adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer in 1958, produced by and starring Kirk Douglas, and based on the novel The Viking by Edison Marshall, based in its turn on legendary material from the sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons. Other actors included Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh , Ernest Borgnine and Frank Thring. The film made notable use of natural locations in Norway. It was mostly filmed in Maurangerfjorden and Bondhus, captured on film by cinematographer Jack Cardiff although Aella's castle was the real Fort de la Latte in north-east Brittany.
Despite being derisively called a "Norse Opera" by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther, the film proved a major box office success and spawned the television series Tales of the Vikings, directed by the film's editor, Elmo Williams, which included none of the original cast or characters.
The Vikings was the second and, as it turned out, last collaboration between Fleischer and Douglas (the first was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). According to the All-Movie Guide, the director and star disagreed on the approach to the material and "for years thereafter would hold each other responsible for the film's falling short of its potential."
Much of the plot was later appropriated by Mario Bava for his own Viking epic, Erik the Conqueror.
Plot synopsis
The King of Northumbria is killed during a Viking raid led by the fearsome Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine). Because the king had died childless, his cousin Aella (Frank Thring) takes the throne. The king's widow, however, is pregnant with what she knows is Ragnar's child, and to protect the infant from her cousin-in-law's ambitions, she sends him off to Italy. By a twist of fate, the ship is intercepted by the Vikings, who are unaware of the child's kinship, and enslave him. The boy grows into a young man named Erik (Tony Curtis).
His parentage is finally discovered by Lord Egbert (James Donald), a Northumbrian nobleman opposed to Aella. When Aella accuses him of treason, Egbert finds sanctuary with Ragnar in Norway. Egbert recognizes the Northumbrian royal sword's pommel stone on an amulet around Erik's neck, placed there by Erik's mother when he was a child. Egbert tells no one.
Erik incurs the wrath of his half-brother Einar (Kirk Douglas), Ragnar's legitimate son and heir, after the former orders his falcon to attack Einar, taking out one of his eyes. Erik is saved from immediate execution when the tribal shaman Kitala (who loves Erik as a son) says that Odin will curse whoever kills him. He is left in a tidal pool to drown with the rising tide, but after he calls out to Odin, the wind shifts and forces the water away, saving him. Egbert then claims him as his slave. Egbert hopes to find an opportunity to take advantage of Erik's unknown claim to the Northumbrian kingdom.
The enmity between the Erik and Einar is exacerbated when they both fall in love with Princess Morgana (Janet Leigh), who was to marry King Aella but is captured in a raid suggested by Egbert. During a drunken fest in the "great hall" complete with giant mead caldrons and ax throwing competition, Einar confesses his feelings to Ragnar, who tells Einar he can have Morgana. Einar throws the guards off the ship Morgana is being held on, and begins to ravish her—defying his expectations of resistance, she submits to him, her emotions towards Einar clearly divided between attraction and revulsion. But before things can go any further, Erik grabs Einar from behind and knocks him out, then takes Morgana away on a small ship he had constructed for Egbert.
Erik and Morgana flee to England, along with Sandpiper, Kitala, and Morgana's maid Bridget (Dandy Nichols). Einar regains consciousness and gives the alarm, and several pursuing longships quickly gain on the fugitives. In thick fog, Ragnar's longboat hits a rock and sinks, while Erik's boat is guided safely by a primitive compass, a piece of magnetite in the shape of a fish that Sandpiper obtained in a distant land. Einar, in another longboat, believes Ragnar to be dead and grudgingly abandons the chase. Ragnar, however, is rescued by Erik and taken prisoner to Aella. Erik and Morgana become lovers during the trip, and she agrees to seek release from her pledge to marry Aella.
Aella orders the Viking leader bound and thrown into a pit filled with starved wolves. To give Ragnar a Viking's death (so that he could enter Valhalla), Erik, who is granted the honor of forcing him into the pit, cuts the prisoner's bonds and gives him his sword. Laughing, Ragnar jumps to his death. In response to Erik's "treason", Aella cuts off his left hand, puts him back on his ship and casts him adrift.
Erik returns to Einar's settlement, and tells his half-brother how his father died, and what had been Aella's reward for allowing Ragnar to die a Viking's death. With this revelation, and the promise that Erik will guide their ships through the fog (thus making a surprise attack possible), Einar is finally able to persuade the other Vikings to mount an invasion of Northumbria. Putting their mutual hatred aside for the moment, Einar and Erik sail for England.
The long dragon ships land and the Vikings begin to move inland in force. The alarm is sounded and the terrified peasants abandon their fields and flocks and flee to the safety of the castle. Soon the Vikings are arrayed in front of the fortress in full battle armor.
Shouting the name of Odin, the Vikings storm Aella's castle. In a bold move, Einar has several Vikings throw axes at the closed gate that bars entrance to the castle. Several of the axe-throwers are killed, but enough survive to throw their axes that a "ladder" is created for Einar to climb after he leaps across the moat to the gate. He gains entry to the castle and lowers the drawbridge so that the other Vikings can overwhelm the outnumbered English. Erik and Einar both set off in search of Morgana. Erik encounters Aella instead and shoves him into the pit of wolves.
Einar finds Morgana in the highest tower of the castle, and again begins to make love to her, telling her she will be his queen. In spite of her still obvious attraction to him, Morgana tells Einar she hates him, and loves Erik. Enraged, Einar drags her outside and calls Erik to their long-delayed battle. The two bitter rivals engage in a swordfight on top of the tower. Erik is defeated, his sword broken, but Einar hesitates to kill him since he has learned from Morgana that Erik is his half-brother. The hesitation gives Erik, who does not yet know they share the same father, the opportunity to stab Einar with his sword's broken blade. Echoing the scene with Ragnar, Erik gives Einar a sword, so that he too can enter Valhalla. In the final scene, Einar is given a Viking funeral: his body is placed on a longboat, which is set on fire by flaming arrows.
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