Harockerce What a beautiful movie!
Pluskylang Great Film overall
Cleveronix A different way of telling a story
Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
BA_Harrison Little does he realise, but slave Eric (Tony Curtis) is not only illegitimate heir to the throne of Northumbria, but also half-brother to viking warrior Einar (Kirk Douglas), with whom he has a bitter feud. When the Norsemen kidnap Welsh princess Morgana (Janet Leigh) and hold her for ransom, the unknowing half-brothers fight for her affection.In 1960, Stanley Kubrick directed celebrated historical classic Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis; two years earlier, Douglas and Curtis had appeared together in another historical adventure, The Vikings, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the superior film—less epic, perhaps, but far more entertaining than Kubrick's movie. It's got a testosterone-fuelled performance from Douglas, Curtis as the dashing hero, Ernest Borgnine as a lovable viking rogue, a marvellous villain (Frank Thring as loathsome King Aella), and Janet Leigh as a beautiful princess, as well as stunning locations, wonderful cinematography, great production values, and, best of all, a huge sense of fun, the action and adventure imbued with humour.Highlights include Kirk Douglas hopping across the oars of a viking long-ship, the use of throwing axes to prove the innocence of an unfaithful viking woman, Eric's daring escape by boat on a foggy fjord, and the rousing finale, in which Eric and Einar temporarily put their differences aside to storm King Aella's castle.
dwpollar 1st watched 8/2/2014 -- 3 out of 10(Dir-Richard Fleischer): Hollywood glorification of a vikings tale with lots of star billing, but little else. The story starts by showing us an English king losing his thrown to an heir that is not worthy with the queen knowing that there is a young viking lad out there somewhere that is her child and deserves the position instead. We are then presented with the boisterous party-like drinking vikings initially led by a character played by Ernest Borgnine with his son played by Kirk Douglas. He ires his son way too much primarily because of his boldness(which maybe he lacks) and thus the iration. The daughter to the throne, Morganna played by Janet Leigh -- is sought after for ransom -- but of course --- Kirk's character wants her for himself for other purposes. Tony Curtis plays the bastard viking son who is an heir but doesn't know it --- and of course, all he wants as well is Morganna. This movie tries to be a romantic triangle within a Viking war-driven oden worshipping culture, but it fails because we never really care for any of the characters. Curtis is fine as a slaved-Viking, but the rest are womanizers who just want glory and victories. We really don't know why they want to conquer England they just do. The preparation to the battles are boring -- the battles are boring -- the ending has no connection to the beginning of the movie -- so overall this is just a mess. This was a very expensive movie that was popular at the box office for some reason, and I'm sure a lot of people got paid well -- but as a movie it flops big time. Boo to Hollywood for producing this quickie money-maker.
utgard14 Gotta say I wasn't overly impressed with this one. I mean, it looks great. It's got some cheesy appeal. But I really didn't like any of the characters in the story. I especially didn't like the so-called hero of the story, played by Tony Curtis. Also, I'm ittedly no expert on royalty but if a king is killed and his wife is raped and gives birth to a child from that, how is that child entitled to be next in the line of succession? As far as I'm aware, he's not, especially if the king still has blood relations living. Anyway, it's not a big deal I suppose but when you're not that into a movie you tend to mull over little details like that. It's a corny movie with some nice cinematography by Jack Cardiff. There are some laughs to be had at its expense. But if you're looking for a serious epic adventure story about Vikings with characters you can care about, I don't think you're going to find it here.
wbbartlett I have no problem with historical epics being inaccurate, after all they are not documentaries. I really like Braveheart, even though its historical nonsense. But don't be fooled by reviews that suggest this film is thoroughly researched and something close to history, because it's not.Like others I also watching this movie when I was young so I thought it would be good to watch it again. It didn't come up to scratch as far as my memory ed it. The acting was wooden and the background singing laughable - like something out of a Monty Python movie. Maybe try it again in another forty years but for now it will be consigned to the deepest recesses of my mind where hopefully I will forget it.
