Tarkan vs. the Vikings (1971): A Visual Review

Look, folks, I'm no historian. There's lots I don't know about The Past, and I'm particularly shaky on what life was like at the height of the Ancient Turkish and Norse cultures. It's a failing, I realize.

For instance, I don't know whether, as Attila the Hun's army rampaged across Asia, the Emperor of China sent his daughter and a small squadron of warriors to forge an alliance with the Vikings in order to kidnap Attila's daughter from her home village in Turkey. I don't know whether the Vikings of that era built huge castles on the Mediterranean, complete with iron-barred dungeons, spring-loaded portcullises, and Roman-style marble baths. I don't know if Vikings had the knowledge of marine biology necessary to domesticate a giant octopus and use it to get rid of their enemies. I don't know whether the Vikings invented the bikini brief. And I've got no idea whether ancient Norway had a huge population of wild Muppets, the skins of which the Vikings used to decorate their armor, drums, weaponry, and just about everything else.

But I'll tell you this: after watching Tarkan vs. the Vikings, one of the grand historical epics of 1970s Turkish cinema--I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Franzetta the Hun

Tarkan (Kartal Tibet) is a loner hero in the Conan the Barbarian mold, a near-invincible Hun Turk who for some reason was left behind in Turkey when his lord Attila left to conquer the known world. Along with his two German Shepherds wolves, Kurt and Kurt Jr., he serves as the bodyguard of Yonca (Fatma Belgen), Attila's daughter, accompanying her to at a Hun village/stone fortress (?) on the banks of the Mediterranean. The early part of the movie is spent establishing Tarkan's extremely close relationship with his dogs, demanding that they be served at the same table and with the same food he is. He's particularly proud of the elder Kurt, who has seen many battles with him and "is raising his son like a good Turk!" Which apparently involves mastering some very complicated rules for table etiquette. Who knew the Huns were such sticklers?

Unbeknownst to the Turks, renegade Viking general Toro (Bilal Inci) is en route, bringing Hell with him in the form of a few dozen galley slaves, several badly wigged Viking warriors, and Dragon-Lady extraordinaire Lotus (Seher Seniz), the daughter of the Chinese Emperor. Apparently His Earthly Godhead has decided to hit Attila where it hurts by kidnapping Yonca and holding her ransom, and further figures the best way to do that is to utilize the military might of the Norsemen. Beating their oarsmen like dusty carpets, the Vikings pull into the harbor and set the fur a'flying! And when I use that term, I mean it more literally than you can imagine.

Once Sesame Street: Mongolia was cancelled, Cookie Monster and Elmo were never seen again.

Vikings: Hard as Nails, Furry as Fuck

To the victor go the shag toilet covers

A fierce battle follows, as the Vikings show why you can't judge a warrior by his hilariously fluffy shield:

Split ends used to be a much bigger problem

One of at least two babies gutted in this scene

In a surprising turn of events, Tarkan the Hero is brought down Boromir-style by a hail of Viking arrows, leaving his faithful dogs to carry on the battle. Kurt and Kurt fight bravely, but unfortunately the elder wolf is skewered by Toro's pom-pommed spear. With Tarkan out of the fight, the rest of the Hun Turks fall like dominoes, and the Viking/Chinese alliance heads back to Norway with all their gold, their surviving women, and Yonca the Hunette lashed to the mast.

It takes more than a couple of arrows to put Tarkan down for good, however, and with the help of Kurt Jr. he's soon bandaging his wounds and burying his fallen lupine brother. At Kurt Sr.'s grave, Tarkan swears eternal vengeance on every Viking unfortunate enough to cross his path. Showing the soul of a poet, the fierce man of war says goodbye to his friend:

Farewell, Kurt--
We are together no more.
No more will you run
beside my horse across the steppes!
You were my everything;
No human being could be as kind,
as loyal and true as you were.
You were dearer to me than anything
And now you are no more.

But I will avenge you--
I will live for revenge!
As long as this spear stands here,
May the whole world know:
Blood will flow and no Viking head
will be safe from my sword
Until the blood of my brother Kurt
is avenged.

It's such a moving extemporaneous work of art, even Kurt Jr. is moved to tears:

"If you prick me, do I not bleed?"

Tarkan says nothing about the dozens of Hun babies and women the Vikings also left steaming on a bed of their own coiled entrails, but hey, some folks is just dog people.

Meanwhile, back at Viking HQ, King Gero is wondering WTF Toro was thinking picking a fight with the Huns. ("Dude, have you SEEN those guys? You don't wear a mouth-corner moustache and topknot like that and NOT be a badass!") Thoroughly disgruntled, Toro and his men quickly usurp the Viking throne, and feed the deposed monarch to their pet sea-monster and totem, a GIANT FUCKING OCTOPUS. In a scene that clearly influenced the Kraken sequence in Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans, watery tentacled death comes for the king.

Uzumaki

WTFucky?

Calamari

You'd think a rubber sea monster with a poorly-inflated head would not be that terrible of harbinger of doom, but nonetheless he gets the job done:

Before

During

After

Inside the Vikings get rapey on the Turk women while New King Toro relaxes in his marble hot tub--which I'm sure came standard in all Viking fortresses, right?

It's good to be Vi-King

Lotus seduces the new monarch into a little Oriental lovin', then drugs his mead and steals a ship, taking the Hun Princess right out from under his nose! Though since it seemed like the Emperor getting Yonca was part of the original deal anyway, this was kind of unnecessary. Still, Toro is kind of a jerk, so I guess he deserved it.

The Chinese sail back to Turkey, for some reason, and hole up at an inn where it just so happens Tarkan is also spending the night. When the Viking pursuit catches up to Lotus, Tarkan's intense hatred for anything in a horny cap comes to the fore, and he quickly destroys them all, gaining Lotus's thanks and respect. Of course he doesn't know that Yonca is right upstairs, struggling against sexy, sexy bonds.

This is the way all my dates end.

Lotus of course remembers Tarkan from the previous battle, but upon learning about his blood-oath against the Norsemen, shrewdly figures it's better to let him slaughter as many of them as he can while she and her dwindling supply of guards make good their escape. So she does her best to keep the warrior happy, which of course can only mean one thing.

"Ooh, baby, you give good hilt!"

Unfortunately another group of Vikings shows up, and since Tarkan has been drugged by Lotus as well (as well as the Princess of China, she's also the Queen of Roofia, apparently), both the putative Empress and Yonca are taken back to Norway. Once he recovers, he rents a rowboat from a local fisherman and gives chase.

Yes, he's rowing from Turkey to Norwary, in a DINGHY. And don't think he can't do it either!

Except that he can't.

Dog Tired

The Vikings spot him adrift and pick him up, thinking they need a little more horsepower in the slave galley. They leave Kurt adrift, but the canny canine swims after them, somehow jumps from the water to the boat, sneaks past all the Vikings and frees Tarkan, who then leads a slave revolt and commandeers the ship. The slaves all swear fealty and want to be his army, but since Tarkan always rides alone, he instead dives into the water and swims the rest of the way to Norway.

Kurt goes along, but doesn't seem too happy about it.

Meanwhile, back at the Viking castle, King Gero's daughter Ursula (Eva Bender) and her ARMY OF FUCKING VALKYRIES have shown up, wondering what (the fuck) happened to dear old dad. Ursula rejected Toro at some time in the past, and he's still steamed about it. To gain closure, he drives Ursula's army back to their ships, captures Ursula herself, and tries to feed her to the octopus as well.

What does a Turkish version of a Norse Warrior Woman look like? I'm so glad you asked.

A Norsewoman's Sternum Never Gets Cold

It looks like Ursula's done for, but lucky for her she's always been kind to the Keeper of the Inflatable Octopus, Orso (or as I like to call him, EEGAH), who rescues her at the last moment and takes her back to her army. On the beach she meets Tarkan, convinces him that they have the same enemy, and before you know it it's time for an all-out castle attack!

A detailed synopsis of what happens next would take pages upon pages. Instead, I'll sum up: Tarkan is captured at least twice, but since the Vikings apparently also invented Dr. Evil-style super-villainy, they never put him to the sword--instead they put him in incredibly ornate traps from which he's unfailingly rescued by Kurt, who seems at this point to be the real brains of the operation. There's a mead-hall orgy complete with blade-throwing-for-accuracy, Viking Trampoline Torture, and wine served from a different kind of juggz. There's a huge battle, Kurt rescues Tarkan from the octopus, and then is himself rescued by his master, the Valkyries storm the castle, and the final boss battle occurs, ending with Tarkan diving off the wall of the castle into the water after the man what killed his doggie.

Please enjoy the following scenes from the aforementioned plot happenings.

He doesn't know yet, but the hawk pissed in his skull-cup.

"If you mention Arch Hall Jr. again, I'm feeding you your nutsack."

Maybe He's Born With It

Their relationship was perfect: torture the innocents, have wild sex, then sip Mochacinos and swap tips on wiggery.

Corey Feldman: He Hates Vikings

"Tell me the truth: does this Muppet pelt make my butt look big?"

"I have to push the pram a loooooooot!"

"...in the Name of Love!"

Ancinet Bikini Briefs

Yonca is not amused

Kurt the Wonder Dog to the Rescue

The rock formations in the lagoon were surprisingly regular

Anachronistic? Probably. ZANG? Definitely.

The first day of the post-Easter Fur Sale was always a madhouse.

SuperTurk

So Tarkan vs. the Vikings is NOT a good movie. The acting is terrible, the shadow of the crew is a constant companion, the sets and costumes are absolutely antagonistic toward historical propriety, and the plot makes little if any sense.

However, as my good friend Samuel Wilson of the excellent blog MONDO 70: A WILD WORLD OF CINEMA pointed out on the comments of this review, "Insofar as it's possible, the law for enjoyable bad movies is 'more!' " And by that standard, it's hard to imagine a more enjoyable bad movie than this one. The fight scenes are poorly choreographed but incredibly energetic, the plot machinations just keep getting nuttier the longer it goes on, and there's a rather endearing macho earnestness to the whole thing that I found charming. (To say nothing of the amazing wigs on those Viking warriors.) And let's face it--any movie that has three characters AND A DOG going all Bela Lugosi on a rubber octopus in a shallow lagoon is going to please any bad movie fan worth his salt.

So there you have it. Most people will hate this movie or else shut it off after 15 minutes in a state of befuddled blankness. But for those who like this sort of thing, there's nothing not to like. 3 thumbs for the most fun I've had watching a movie in a while. If you get a chance to grab the Mondo Macabro release, do yourself a favor and call some friends over. I predict you'll have a blast.

"By Odin's Beard, Vicar! IT'S HUGE!"

Many thanks to dfordoom of Cult Movie Reviews for the most excellent movie-watching suggestion!

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Gargoyles (1972): or, Goyles Gone Wild!

The story is well-known: a long, long time ago--around six thousand years, according to the most reputable theological calculations--the archangel Lucifer, flush with devilish pride, rebelled against God and as a result was cast out of Heaven, taking with him a large number of similarly prideful angels. Ever since then, the Light Bearer has waged a war of revenge on God's favored creatures, Humankind, variably seeking either to lure them into iniquity and Hell after death, or else to destroy them completely and establish his infernal kingdom on Earth.

A lesser-known aspect of the story is presented in the opening credits of the made-for-TV movie Gargoyles: while viewing a Pernicious Powerpoint Presentation of devil-centered art through the centuries (paintings by Bosch and Blake, medieval woodcuts, stills from the 1922 silent classic Häxan), a Narrator informs us how Satan also branched out into the creation business himself, fathering a race of demonic humanoids for a predictably eeevil purpose:

[The Devil said,] "My offspring the gargoyles will one day rule the Lord's works, Earth and Man!" And so...while man ruled on earth, the gargoyles waited, lurking, hidden from the light. Reborn every 600 years in Man's reckoning of time, the gargoyles joined battle against man to gain dominion over the earth...

Obviously the Satan Spawn were really bad at this, since by this man's reckoning their first 10 or so attempts must have ended in abject failure. Still, in 1972, in the southern California desert, that time had apparently rolled around once again...

Not a Gargoyle. Probably.

We open with divorced professor Mercer Boley (Cornel Wilde) picking up his adult daughter Diana (Jennifer Salt) at the airport. The professor has apparently written a series of best-selling books about how religion is a load of bunk--much like Richard Moll's character in the recently reviewed The Nightmare Never Ends--and has recruited his daughter to take photos for his next book, 5000 Years of Demonology. As the Richard Dawkins of his day, Professor Boley doesn't believe in the supernatural, and hopes to show how man's conception of evil beings through the ages has really just been the result of ignorance, superstition, and one too many bowls of pre-sleepytime gruel.

On their way to Mexico for research, the pair stop at Uncle Willie's Desert Museum, a dust-covered roadside attraction whose owner claims to have found a valuable supernatural artifact. Crusty old Uncle Willie (Woody Chambliss) first comes off as a charlatan, but when the prof threatens to bolt he takes them out the the shed to show them what he's uncovered: the skeleton of a demonic humanoid beast, with horns, wings, and a saurian beak!

"I call it, 'Floopsy.'"

Intrigued, Mercer and Diana ply the old man with liquor and listen to his tales of ancient Indian rituals as night falls on the desert. Soon, though, the beating of leathery wings disturbs their symposium, and a marauding group of living gargoyles on a mission to retrieve their dead tear the shed apart and set it on fire! Diana and Mercer grab the skull and escape, leaving poor old Uncle Willie to perish in the fiery cataclysm.

On the run from the monsters, Mercer and Diana hole up in a local motel run by drunk dowager Mrs. Parks (the scene-stealing Grayson Hall). A pair of wingless gargoyles who look like the offspring of Lou Gossett and a Sleestak invade the Boleys ' room and grab the skull, but when one of them is struck on the highway by a passing semi (that keeps right on truckin', despite having just creamed a freakin' dinosaur-man!), the professor scoops up the body and throws it in his station wagon, hoping to get it back to L.A. in time for the next taping of That's Incredible!--which will be about 8 years later. Unfortunately this brings out the King Gargoyle (Bernie Casey), a winged nightmare who seems less interested in reclaiming his fallen subject's body than in staking a new claim on Diana's--emphasis on "stake."

"Please, just try to relax."

After some shenanigans, rigmarole, and assorted brouhaha, King G kidnaps Diana, taking her back to the Gargoyle HQ where a dozen other scaly horrors are tending to an Alien-style cache of eggs in preparation for exponential reproduction and the eradication of humanity. While Professor Mercer, the local police, and a group of recreational dirt-bike enthusiasts (led by a stonier-than-usual Scott Glenn) comb the desert and engage in periodic skirmishes with the wingless drones (only the winged gargoyles are "breeders"), the head gargoyle forces Diana to read to him from her father's books, passages about medieval women being raped by incubi. Of course this makes King G horny--well, hornier--and he starts putting the moves on his new little pink-skinned petunia. Unfortunately this puts him on the outs with his Muppet-reject winged old lady, whose jealousy leads her to allow the humans into the cave and sets up the final confrontation and another 600 years of thinking about what could have been.

Man, they just don't make TV movies like they used to!

Gargoyles is a fun movie from start to finish, helped along by very brisk pacing (the first gargoyle attack comes IMMEDIATELY after the first commercial break), some periodically excellent cinematography, a 60s monster movie-style score, and Emmy-winning monster make-up from Ellis Burman Jr. and future FX legend Stan Winston. While the man-in-a-suit aesthetic might seem a little cheesy to an audience weaned on ever more photorealistic CG creatures, there's a reason a whole generation was moved to nightmare by these guys:

"Did you know your Stretch Armstrong doll is under here?"

Miss Gargoyle New Mexico, 1971

Don't Break the Oath

Like the music, the acting has a kind of nostalgic 1960s monster-movie feel, with Cornel Wilde's Professor delivering all his occult knowledge in the deadpan earnestness of a slightly constipated news anchor, and King G himself (voiced by Vic Perrin, who also did narration duties for TV's "The Outer Limits") coming off more like a bumbling Alien Commander trying to overcome that famous Indomitable Human Spirit than like the offspring of a fallen angel. (In fact, opening narration aside, the gargoyles really come across more as cryptozoological entities, never evincing even the tiniest of supernatural powers.) Jennifer Salt, who would go on to greater fame on the soap opera spoof series "Soap", is okay in the acting department, but does most of her work here with her lungs--she's an excellent screamer, and does it often--and with her impressive encasements of those instruments:

"Check under the hood, please."

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Franzetta."

"This isn't a cookbook...it's a sex manual!"

Director Bill L. Norton delivers a mixed bag from behind the camera. On the plus side, he does a good job keeping the gargoyles in shadow for much of the first act, adding to the menace and suspense while still showing them to be dangerous, frightening monsters. However, his penchant for showing the creatures only in slow-motion, even during battles with humans (sometimes on moving cars!) loses its effectiveness very quickly. He does manage some gorgeous compositions with the desert landscape, at times evoking an epic, huge-budget feel:

Vanishing Point

Storm's a-brewin'

No Country for Scaly Men

But at other times he produces some pretty tremendous gaffes--whether due to tight shooting schedules, inability to afford retakes, or basic sloppiness is unclear. Check out the shadows of the crew in the following snaps:

At least there's no lens flare

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Director

(Note: I'm labeling the post "boom mike cameo," because there's bound to be a boom mike in there somewhere.)

There are perhaps a few other quibbles one could make--a cop car/dirt bike chase goes on a bit too long for my taste, for instance, and the Gargoyle Women somehow manage to lay eggs that are about 5 times the size of any conceivable aperture on their persons--but weighed against the entertainment value Gargoyles provides, they are small ones indeed. 2.75 thumbs for this piece of made-for-TV excellence.

Still yet MORE images from Gargoyles (1972):

Gargoyles Go Wild

Monster in the Bed

Toughest thing about being an elderly sheriff? Depends.

Reading is Sexy

"This way to Burning Man!"

Road Rash

"Get on my horse. My horse is amazing."

Keep watching the skies! Or the boobs. Either's good.

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...