The Long Ships (1964)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Masterpiece!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The Long Ships is a fun movie. Richard Widmarck's "Rolfe" could be a medieval ancestor of William H Macy's "Frank Gallagher." Having seen both this and the more serious The Vikings, I prefer The Long Ships. Neither is all that historically accurate, though The Vikings claims to be. The Vikings uses a standard Hollywood romantic subplot which is annoying. But The Long Ships exchanges The Vikings' sober pseudo-accuracy for a sharp sense of fun. While very un-PC, there is no doubt Rolfe and Portier's al Mansur did respect one another and in another time and place might have been great friends. Add a rousing score and great cinematography, and you have a winner--just don't take it too seriously..

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 starts telling the following legend :¨And so, by the storm's fury he lost all he loved most in this world, his ship and his shipmates. But he was ashore alone , the only survivor. Monks found him and took him to their monastery where they tenderly nursed him never asking his name of his country.And gradually he grew stronger, as he slowly recovered, he saw that the holy men collected tiny colored stones. And with great patience and loving skill made pictures from them to decorate their chapel. And the pictures told a story. A story of a mighty bell made of solid gold. For days without number the holy men labored to make this mighty bell, They made ready a great cauldron and under it fire burned day at night. They came of gold. Gold idols, golden rings taken from the harems, from wives, from princesses, from courtesans. Gold money, gold from ships, mines and caravans, from mosques , palaces and sacred cities. Gold stolen by robbers from from the tombs of pharaohs , golden cups, golden plate. Treasure won by conquering armies, And from its hiding place came the fabulous chain of Nimrud of the 10.ooo golden links. A last the huge cauldron was so filled with molten gold that no more could be added. Then I was poured into a gigantic clay mold. For days it stood cooling until the hour struck when the clay was torn away . And so the great golden bell came shinning into the world. They smoothed it, they polished it. Then they called on it to speak, And they ran back in terror and in awe. And covered their ears. For this was the mother of voices¨.Rolf (Richard Widmark) as leader of a band of Norsemen along with his brother Orn (Russ Tamblyn) stealing a ship sets sail for the unknown land in search of a missing solid-gold bell . Meanwhile they kidnap a Viking princess (Beba Loncar) and hold her for security. Widmark heading off a mysterious place, defending his people and battling for his survival against mutinous crew , evil oppressors(Clifford Evans) and especially fighting Moorish prince named El Mansuh(Sidney Poitier) There're also some gorgeous babes ( Rosanna Schiaffino, Beba Loncar) around to offer us certain comfort .This enjoyable picture packs adventures, thrills, good action scenes and is very amusing. Great location footage of booth Yugoslavia and Great Britain. Shimmer and glimmer cinematography by Christopher Challis. Spectacular and evocative musical score by Dugan Radic. The picture is well directed by Jack Cardiff (Dark of the sun, The girl on the motorcycle, My Geisha).This basic costume epic belongs to Viking genre such as : The classic ¨The Vikings(1958)¨ by Richard Fleischer with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, ¨The Norseman(1978) ¨ by Charles B Pierce with Cornel Wilde and Mel Ferrer ; ¨The Viking queen(1967)¨ by Don Chaffey with Don Murray and Andrew Keir; ¨The Viking sagas(1995)¨ by Michael Chapman with Ralph Moeller , among others.

The 1964 British-Yugoslavian epic "The Long Ships" with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, concerns a rivalry between marauding Viking seafarers and Moorish swordsmen. The hero and villain are searching for a fabled gigantic golden bell of legend reputed to be as tall as three men and made with 'half the gold in the world.' This entertaining, formulaic, far-fetched nonsense has Widmark hamming it up as a rogue Viking while Poitier plays his Moorish prince with a straight face as well as straightened hair. Since cinematographer-turned- helmer Jack Cardiff had lensed director Richard Fleischer's "The Vikings" (1958), Cardiff knew something about colorful Norsemen. He stages several battles and does an effective job of deploying men and horses in those physical encounters. "Sink the Bismarck" lenser Christopher Challis does a wonderful job capturing the spectacular vigor of this larger-than-life adventure with its breathtaking scenery. Nevertheless, if you're expecting a traditional Viking movie with brawny muscle-bound brutes wielding massive broadswords and wearing imposing helmets decorated with horns as in Fleischer's "The Viking," prepare to be disappointed. Losing his ship in a violent storm during the opening credits, ne'er-do-well Viking navigator Rolfe (Richard Widmark of "The Alamo") finds himself washed ashore as the lone survivor in an alien land. Actually, the stormy sailing sequences consist of footage from later in the film that Cardiff shifted to the title credits. I've seen this movie many times and the black funeral sail gives the ship away. Nevertheless, Rolfe wanders foreign lands trying to acquire money to return home to his native Scandinavia. Long-time James Bond title sequence master Maurice Binder created the silhouette sequence where the Monks take in the shipwrecked Rolfe and he hears initially about the mythical bell. Irving Allen produced this lusty saga over an evidently considerable budget. At one time, Allen served as Albert R. Broccoli's producing partner. Allen and Broccoli split when Broccoli decided to produce Ian Fleming's 007 novels. The misguided Allen foresaw little future in James Bond. Rolfe is spinning his yarn about the 'Mother of Voices,' the giant gilded bell of legend, in the marketplace when Mansuh's warriors arrest him and take him to Mansuh. The Moorish prince has Rolfe incarcerated in a high room in his palace. Mansuh threatens to torture Rolfe if he refuses to divulge the whereabouts of the golden bell. Rolfe manages to escape by diving out an open window into the sea. He returns to his father's village during a celebration as Krok (Oskar Homolka of "Funeral in Berlin") is about to sell King Harold (Clifford Evans of "S.O.S. Pacific") a funeral ship. King Harold cheats Krok out of his ship and gives the elder ship builder two gold coins. Rolfe shows up and tells Krok that he knows where the giant bell is. Neither Krok nor Rolfe's younger brother, Orm (Russ Tamblyn of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers") believe him. In any case, Krok tells Rolfe that he has no ship. Rolfe decides to steal King Harold's ship because Harold has clearly cheated Krok. Rolfe kidnaps Harold's daughter to ensure that Harold doesn't hang Krok. They take King Harold's skipper Sven (Edward Judd of "First Men in the Moon") hostage along with the king's daughter and set sail. Predictably, Harold pursues them in his many ships. A storm beaches Rolfe's ship and crew and they find themselves fighting for their lives against Mansuh's warriors. Hopelessly outnumbered after repeated attacks, Rolfe orders his men to surrender to the Moors and they are imprisoned. When they refuse to divulge the whereabouts of the legendary bell, Mansuh threatens to ride Rolfe down the wicked Mare of Steel, a humongous scimitar with a horse's head and a sharp, cutting edge. Mansuh demonstrates not only the brutality of the Mare of Steel but also the blind obedience of his men when his wife, Ylva, chooses one to demonstrate the lethal nature of his huge torture device. Eventually, our heroes find the bell, but they are misled about its status in an interesting misdirect of ironic proportions. Mansuh has taken Rolfe and his men as his prisoners and forces them to repair their ship since they explain that his own galleys would never weather the maelstrom of the waters surrounding the place where they heard the bell reverberate with its deafening cacophony. It seems doubtful in our equal opportunity age that "The Long Ships" could be remade without altering the drama of the story. For example, Islam is depicted as villainous and Mansuh, his army, and even his wife must perish at the hands of the Vikings. There are many problems with the nature of the bell that the filmmakers gloss over, but none of these really interferes with the outlandish nature of the plot. Of course, the bell would never have survived the plunge that this one takes when he falls off a mountain into the sea without some signs of wear and tear.Anybody familiar with the work of British actor Lionel Jeffries may have a tough time finding him. He is virtually unrecognizable as Mansuh's palace eunuch Aziz. Dusan Radic's majestic orchestral musical score ranks as truly memorable. "The Long Ships" features lots of fights as well as the ultimate torture device called 'the Mare of Steel.' The Mare is a gigantic curved sword, razor-sharp with a horse's head. The victim is sent sliding down it and gets sliced into two pieces. Atmospheric and suspenseful at times. Widmark's Viking complains that everybody believes his lies but nobody believes the truth when he tells it. "Jason and the Argonauts" scenarist Beverly Cross and "Dr. No" scribe Berkely Mather penned "The Long Ships" screenplay from Frans G. Bengtsson's novel. Despite some slow spots, "The Long Ships" is a lot of fun.