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The Vikings

DVD Release

  • Release Date: 2002
  • English: Mono
  • French: Mono
  • Spanish: Mono
  • Featurette with director Richard Fleischer
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • English, French & Spanish subtitles

  • Rating: StarStarStar
  • Genre: Historical Film
  • Movie Type: Costume Adventure
  • Themes: Love Triangles, Sibling Relationships
  • Director: Richard Fleischer
  • Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, Janet Leigh, James Donald, Alexander Knox
  • Release Year: 1958
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 116 minutes

Plot

Inspired by the novel The Viking by Edison Marshall, The Vikings was lensed on location in Norway under extremely adverse weather conditions. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that star Kirk Douglas and director Richard Fleischer never quite found a common ground, and for years thereafter would hold each other responsible for the film's falling short of its potential. Still, the finished product is quite a feast for the eyes and ears. Douglas, the son of Viking leader Ernest Borgnine, carries on a film-length feud with slave Tony Curtis, who, unbeknownst to everyone but Borgnine, is Kirk's illegitimate brother. This personal battle comes to a head when Douglas and Curtis both lay claim on captured English princess Janet Leigh. The scene everyone remembers in The Vikings finds Borgnine, at the mercy of wicked monarch Frank Thring, defiantly throwing himself into a pit of ravenous wolves. Launched into distribution with one of the splashiest ad campaigns in United Artists' history, The Vikings proved an enormous success; it inspired the 1959 TV series Tales of the Vikings, which utilized the film's props, costumes and scale-model ships. In 1964, The Vikings served as the inagural presentation of ABC's Sunday Night Movie series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast


Frank Thring - King Aella; Maxine Audley - Enid; Eileen Way - Kitala; Edric Connor - Sandpiper; Dandy Nichols - Bridget; Almut Berg - Pigtails; Per Buchhij - Bjorn; Orson Welles - Narrator (uncredited)

Credit

Jerry Bresler - Producer; Jack Cardiff - Cinematographer; Kirk Douglas - Producer; Richard Fleischer - Director; Mario Nascimbene - Composer (Music Score); Neville Smallwood - Makeup; Elmo Williams - Editor; Franco Ferrara - Musical Direction/Supervision; John O'Gorman - Makeup; Julien Derode - Production Manager; Dale Wasserman - Screenwriter; Calder Willingham - Screenwriter; Andre Smagghe - First Assistant Director; Harper Goff - Production Designer; Jean DeBretagne - Sound/Sound Designer; Lucie Lichtig - Continuity; Edison Marshall - Book Author

Similar Movies

Spartacus; Knives of the Avenger; Alfred the Great; The Long Ships; Braveheart; The Viking Sagas; The 13th Warrior; Gli Invasori; I Na Kamnyakh Rastut Derevya
 
 
Wikipedia: the Vikings (film)
The Vikings
Vikings_moviep.jpg
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Produced by Jerry Bresler
Written by Calder Willingham (screenplay)
Dale Wasserman (adaptation)
Edison Marshall (novel}
Starring Kirk Douglas
Tony Curtis
Janet Leigh
Ernest Borgnine
James Donald
Alexander Knox
Music by Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography Jack Cardiff
Editing by Elmo Williams
Distributed by United Artists
Release date(s) June 11, 1958
Running time 116 min.
Country USA
Language English
Budget $5,000,000 (estimated)
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Vikings was an action/adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer in 1958, produced by and starring Kirk Douglas, and based on the novel The Viking by Edison Marshall. Other actors included Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Ernest Borgnine. The film made notable use of natural locations in Norway, crisply captured on film by cinematographer Jack Cardiff.

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, but 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."

Plot synopsis

The film begins with the King of Northumbria being killed during a Viking raid led by the fearsome Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine). After a ferocious battle between Swedish Vikings led by David the Bloody-Fingered and Norwegians led by Jeffry Web-Toed, the king finally succumbs. Because the king had died childless, his cousin Aella (Frank Thring) ascends the throne. He appoints Jeffry as chancellor but he is quickly killed by an insurgency committed by David and his Swedes. 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 twist of fate, the ship is intercepted en route by the Vikings, who are not aware of the child's kinship and forces him into slavery.

The child, Erik (Tony Curtis), grows up, and nobody knows his true parentage until Lord Egbert (James Donald), a Northumbrian ally of the Vikings exposed by Aella, is saved by Ragnar and sent to Norway. Shortly after meeting Erik, Egbert recognizes the Northumbrian royal sword's pommel stone that Erik's mother had placed as an amulet around the child's neck, and decides to use the slave to achieve his own ambitions of overthrowing Aella. Egbert reveals his finding to no one.

Erik, however, had incurred the wrath of his half-brother Einar (Kirk Douglas), Ragnar's legitimate son and heir, after the former had commanded his falcon to "kill" Einar, taking out one of his eyes. The enmity was exacerbated by both men falling in love with Princess Morgana (Janet Leigh), who was set to marry King Aella but whose ship had been captured in a raid devised by Egbert.

Using a primitive compass, Erik and Morgana escape to England shortly after her capture, with Einar and Ragnar in pursuit. In the process, Ragnar's longboat hits a rock and sinks. Einar, in another longboat, believes Ragnar dead and grudgingly abandons the chase. Ragnar, in fact, had been rescued by Erik and taken prisoner to England, where Aella ordered the Viking bound and thrown to his death in his pit of starved wolves.

To give Ragnar a Viking's death (so that he could enter Valhalla), Erik, who had been given the honor of forcing him down the pit, cuts his bonds and gives him his sword, with which the Viking chieftain 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 the only place where he could find allies, 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. Upon hearing Erik's testimony, Einar's Vikings decide to invade Northumbria. Putting their mutual hatred of each other aside, Einar and Erik sail for England, but it is clear that once their common cause is achieved, nothing will prevent them from settling their accounts.

In the climax of the film, the Vikings storm the castle of Aella. In a bold move, Einar leaps across the moat to the inner part of the castle and opens up the drawbridge paving the way for the Vikings to attack the out-numbered English. Erik and Einar, however, aren't concerned about the battle, and they both set off to find Morgana. Erik finds Aella instead and shoves him into the pit of wolves.

Einar meanwhile has climbed up the highest tower of the castle where Morgana is praying with a monk at the castle. Einar quickly kills the monk and grabs Morgana for himself. Erik sees Einar with Morgana at the tower, and he quickly runs to rescue Morgana. Einar and Erik swordfight on top of the tower. Erik's sword breaks, giving Einar the chance to kill him, but Einar hesitates, having recently learned that Erik is his brother. The hesitation allows Erik enough time to stab Einar with his broken sword. Erik doesn't understand the hesitiation, but he allows Einar a Viking funeral by handing him a sword to hold in his hand.

The Vikings, victorious in battle, put Einar's body on a longboat and set fire to the boat using flaming arrows. Thus ends The Vikings.

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