King Richard and the Crusaders (1954)

Overrated

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I give it a NINE as a 12-year-old. As a mature person, I can't say because it's not available, even on Netflix. At the time, I thought it a great adventure film. So they scrambled history a bit and the lines were corny; but with costumes, intrigue, and romance, plus Rex Harrison and the always impeccable George Sanders, what more could a kid want?Especially loved the part "where King Richard meets Saladin and shows him 'the strength of English steel' by cutting through an iron mace placed across the backs of two chairs. Saladin responds in kind by throwing a silk veil in the air which separates as it falls across his scimitar, and he replies that 'sometimes it is not the strength of the steel but the sharpness of the blade.'"Didn't you ever like some film as a kid for reasons known only to a 12-year-old?

Actually,Richard Lionheart spent hardly one year in his country;most of the time,he was in France,where he owned big fiefs,or gone on crusades.Adapting a Walter Scott novel and with a cast featuring Rex Harrison,Laurence Harvey ,George Sanders and the "tangible proof of Allah's existence "(dixit a local sheik) ,Virginia Mayo ,how can a director do wrong?However that's what he does in an awful screenplay.The actors are miscast and/or their parts are inept.Who could believe Rex Harrison is Saladin?Who could believe he came to the crusaders' camp ?the secrecy with which he surrounded himself? I did not even recognize the fair-haired (?) Scottish -"never trust a Scottish " seems to be Richard's motto) Laurence Harvey who ,sadly falls in love with the king's sister Edith..Edith,played by Mayo,is a pacifist: "fight fight fight that's all you think of Dick (sic) Plantagenêt (re-sic)! And George Sanders plays the well-known part of George -Sanders-the-suave- unctuous-villain.A big disappointment,given all the talents involved.

Have to admit I didn't read Sir Walter Scott's "The Talisman" in which this film is supposed to be based on. If "King Richard and the Crusaders is a good version of the book I'm glad I didn't.This movie is sort of colorful with some acceptable gowns (I didn't say accurate), Virginia Mayo has some good profile shots (I didn't say scenes), George Sanders renders an acceptable performance as the title character and Robert Douglas plays fine one of his usual costume villains. And that's about all.The medieval extravaganza looks definitely as a low budget one with not much credible situations, lots of full speed horseback riding towards nowhere, standard swordplay and that originally ridiculous undercover doctor (Saladin himself) curing his enemy Richard wounded by an arrow thrown by his own men. Nobody understands either why really Douglas wants to kill his king; I mean they say why, but its not enough reason (too standard). And there's one of the most insipid and dull heroes ever in a medieval film: Laurence Harvey as Kenneth The Leopard with a blonde wig, a wooden acting and ridiculous lines in his romantic scenes with Mayo (it's hard to understand how Harvey went into a reasonable film career if his first roles where like this one).The only explanation for this picture being made could be that the producers tried to take advantage of the ticket box's success of "Ivanhoe" (based on Walter Scott's best novel) and "Knights of the Round Table" both released a short time before. If my guess is right, they failed completely.

The fifties was Hollywood's decade of change... With television's continuing stronghold on the public, the film industry had to rethink itself into competing against the monster box and, in so doing, underwent a radical personality change...Clearly, the only way to lure audiences back into the cinema was to provide them with something that was unavailable on television. The alternatives soon became apparent: new projection ratios that could in no way be matched by the small screen, epics whose production costs were beyond the reach of TV..."King Richard and the Crusaders" begins with Richard the Lionhearted (George Sanders) and his allies having hardly set foot in the Holy Land on the Third Crusade when a group of treacherous nobles plans to kill Richard and take command of the whole operation...Sir Kenneth (Lawrence Harvey) makes his appearance as a noble Scotsman, the only knight who is truly loyal to Richard... He warns the king about the traitors in his midst, and rides off to find evidence against them...Virginia Mayo is Richard's cousin, Lady Edith, who is hopelessly in love with Sir Kenneth, but she can't marry him until he proves himself...Rex Harrison plays the role of the Saracen ruler Saladin, who falls in love with Lady Edith... The motion picture makes it clear that it is Saladin, not Richard, who is the nobler and wiser chieftain through a series of intrigues which show the great Sultan playing physician, matchmaker and spy all the while Richard is being cheated by traitors and self-interested allies around him... In fact, the tricked king is moved to condemn to death his bravest knight and supporter...Robert Douglas is Sir Giles Amaury, the treacherous knight who sneaks up to Richard's tent one night with a hired bowman... "Strike deep!" he urged, "this is no ordinary man!" Very loosely based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, David Butler's "King Richard and the Crusaders" is a fun film, full of adventure and exotic locales, but absolutely far from Richard Thorpe's "Ivanhoe," poor in colorful characters and chivalry...