DVR Diary: THE LONG SHIPS (1964)

Richard Fleischer's The Vikings (1958) inspired a cycle of Viking films in Europe, including two by Mario Bava, but U.S. audiences apparently had seen enough the first time. Jack Cardiff's The Long Ships, a British-Yugoslavian co-production boasting Hollywood stars, was enough of a bomb at the U.S. box office to earn a mention in the Medved brothers' Hollywood Hall of Shame book. It's perhaps the most eccentric item in Sidney Poitier's filmography: a rare if not sole outing as a villain, reportedly ballyhooed as his first "non-Negro" role. He plays a Moorish ruler, al-Mansuh, who covets a legendary golden bell forged by Christian monks generations earlier. A storytelling beggar in his territory, Rolfe (Richard Widmark), claims to know where the bell can be found. Rolfe boasts of his Viking credentials, but you might share al-Mansuh's skepticism when this clean-shaven man throws off his robes to reveal the vest and shorts that supposedly serve as his bona fides. Chased from the territory, Rolfe appears to swim all the way back home to Norse-land, to reunite with his brother Orm (the actual protagonist of Frans Bengtsson's source novel, played by Russ Tamblyn, also clean-shaven) and his troubled lord and father (Oscar Homolka in comedy relief). The bell story gets him a crew who help him steal the longship dad had just handed over to his overlord, King Harald (Clifford Evans). While Rolfe has been built up as a rogue if not an outright liar, it turns out that he does know where the bell can be found, but he doesn't quite know how to land his ship in the right location. Wrecked in a whirlpool, he and his men fall into al-Mansuh's hands, but the lure of gold convinces the Moor to build Rolfe a fresh ship for one more try at the bell. If he fails, Rolfe and his men will have to ride the steel mare, and one doesn't do that and live to tell about it....

Poitier as a Moor with Widmark as his antagonist can't help making you wonder what they could have done as Othello and Iago. That seems more in Widmark's line than the role of Rolfe. Widmark had a respectable range, encompassing irascible authority figures and psychopathic imbeciles, but he lacks the swashbuckling panache that Rolfe requires. Similarly, Poitier doesn't fully take advantage of this one great opportunity to go over the top, though he could be excused for thinking that his costumes and his pompadour wig had already done the work for him. Neither is awful, but neither is really up for the type of performance this story seems to need. Russ Tamblyn's dance background makes him more of an action-hero type, but he would have been better served by a more faithful filming of the novel. As an action film, The Long Ships is a mixed bag. There's a terribly shot battle on a beach in which Rolfe's Vikings throw a wave of spears at Moorish cavalry. Cardiff cuts to horses and men tumbling under the impact of apparently invisible missiles. On the other hand, a disastrous attempt to drag the great bell down from its perch atop a cliff is very well done, and as far as special effects are concerned the waterborne model work is mostly quite good.  The film veers in tone from tragic violence to dubiously broad comedy, e.g. the Viking's lusty invasion of al-Mansuh's harem and the general abuse of a comedy-relief eunuch. Overall, it's a more comical film than I remember from childhood viewings, and also somewhat better than my dim memories. But while it's the sort of thing I'm tempted to find inherently entertaining, I can also see why American audiences left it rather than taking it to heart.

DVR Diary: THE VIKING (1928)

No, Hollywood wasn't quite ready to give us a true warrior woman at the end of the silent era. Pauline Starke looks awesome in the role of Helga Nilsson, especially since Roy William Neill's film was shot in Technicolor and was, in fact, produced by the Technicolor company (and distributed by M-G-M) to show off what it could do, but while Helga is described as one of Leif Ericsson's captains, we never really see her fight. In fact, she's introduced to us falling off her horse. Leif the Lucky (Donald Crisp) raised her as a viking because her father was one of his comrades who died in battle. Helga's little more than a brat, however. She walks the walk in that pulp-cover-come-to-life costume, but she doesn't talk the talk, since this is, after all, still a silent film, albeit with a synchronized soundtrack of Wagner, Grieg and various sound effects.  The Viking ends up being a romantic triangle, as Leif decides he wants the marry the woman who had practically been a daughter to him, while she falls in love with the English slave Alwin (LeRoy Mason) her band captured on one of their recent raids. I suppose it's a quadrangle, since Egil the Black (Harry Woods) also longs for Helga, since what man wouldn't? But Helga likes a clean-shaven man, like Alwin, and that means trouble for everyone.

Leif, a Christian, is ambitious to spread the faith and discover new lands. He has a plan to sail west until he finds something, but more dangerous than the journey across unknown lengths of ocean is a visit to Dad for supplies. Leif's Dad is Eric the Red (Anders Randolf), the ruler of Greenland. In an age before Marvel Comics, Eric is Thor the thunder god's biggest fan. On The Viking's evidence, Chris Helmsworth has been misclad. Eric's Thor statues are red-skinned and horn-helmed, and the thunder god has lightning bolts for accessories along with his hammer. When Eric adjudicates a dispute between his subjects, he expects them to sanctify his decision by paying homage to Thor. When one subject proves unwilling, and is revealed by his crucifix to be a Christian, Eric executes him on the spot. It doesn't look promising for Leif, and as it turns out Eric doesn't believe in double standards or family favoritism. When Leif affirms his faith, and still asks for supplies, a mini civil war breaks out in Eric's hall. The best we can say for Eric the Red is that, once Leif and his crew make good their escape from Greenland, he has a sort of pride in his boy's fighting ability despite his goddamn hippy spiritualism.

It's hard to keep a crew in line when nobody knows how long your voyage is going to take. Nor does it help when most of your crew expect eventually to fall off the edge of the world. The dominoes start falling when Egil decides to pull a mutiny on Leif. Alwin, whose intellect Leif has respected, intervenes to rescue his master -- he was first purchased by Helga, who gave him to Leif as a gift -- but when Alwin goes down Helga panics and reveals her love for him. This enrages Leif, who's about to channel his father's patriarchal wrath when he remembers his faith instead and lowers his sword. It may be no accident, however, that after the ship finally reaches land, Leif leaves Helga and Alwin to start a colony at the future site of Newport RI while he goes back where he came from.

The Viking definitely serves its purpose as a Technicolor showcase. It has a richer palette than most contemporary color films, getting closer to genuine blue for seas and skies. Cinematographer George Cave and perennial Technicolor consultant (i.e. the boss's wife) Natalie Kalmus hit a visual home run here. The costumes may no longer represent how we visualize Vikings -- horned and winged helmets have become passe over 85 years -- but they give the film a fantastic flavor the actual story lacks. It simply lacks the degree of mayhem most people, even then, may have expected from a Viking movie. Since much of the story is historically suspect, why not indulge, as other filmmakers have done since, in some fantasy-league Vikings-vs.-Indians action? Instead, some Natives show up toward the end to shake hands with Leif and live in peace with the colonists. Only the melee in Greenland really lives up to expectations, though Pauline Starke is a spectacle that nearly compensates for any omissions. The Technicolor alone makes The Viking a must-see for film history buffs, but the film should still prove a visual treat for general audiences as well.

In Brief: VALHALLA RISING (2009)

Nicolas Winding Refn's Dark Age thriller is such a cruel picture that the hero is a murderous mute -- and they call him One-Eye! Need I say more? I suppose I should, since the film is probably only an accidental homage to Bo Vibenius's female-revenge extravaganza. If it's a conscious homage to anything it may be to Apocalypse Now -- think of this as Apocalypse Retro. It deals with Vikings, unrepentant pagans driven to the ends of the earth by the advance of Christianity. We find them in a desolate landscape with a prisoner in tow. This is the mute (Mads Mikkelsen), a sort of fighting slave with a high turnover rate of masters. For entertainment men match their might against his. They die. He snaps their necks with his chain, wrapping it around then running until he hits the end of his tether. Sometimes he has a rock handy to smash a skull with. He's getting tired of it; he's having visions. In a stream he finds an arrowhead. He uses it to unbind himself while in transit and kill his captors -- all save the boy who had fed him, who now chooses to follow him. Where else is he going to go? Home? He doesn't know where that is any more. Where's the mute going? He probably has a better idea of when than where.

Neck snapping, head cutting: One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) can do it all.

The unlikely pair stroll into a camp of raiders stocked with burnt corpses and naked enslaved females. These raiders are Christians; apparently they were raising funds to go on Crusade in the Holy Land. Judging "One-Eye" (so the boy now calls him, since "You have to have a name, and you've got one eye.") a tough customer, and unwilling to fight him, the crusaders invite him on board their boat. He and the boy accept. They seem to spend weeks adrift in a mist until the men feel accursed. Some want to blame the boy, but One-Eye isn't having that. But before things deteriorate further a taste of the water reveals that they're now upstream on the mainland somewhere. That somewhere, from the looks of things, seems to be North America, and the natives are not friendly. One by one the inadvertent invaders are picked off or disappear, while One-Eye has a dire vision of the sacrifice necessary to save the boy -- from what and for what, who can say?...

Valhalla Rising is stark stuff, its violence all the stronger (despite some poor CGI blood spurts) for being done on the scale of single combat rather than mass battle. The vast landscapes in either hemisphere are beautiful and dreadful at once, dwarfing the handful of actors trudging through them. If the boat ordeal reminds you of Apocalypse Now, the overall atmosphere is more post-apocalyptic. The object doesn't seem to be a recreation of history, but an evocation of man at the end of his tether. One-Eye's visions take the film into the realm of fantasy, but the fantasy is pretty limited in scale and scope. We don't see the Norse gods, nor do we get any evidence that Christianity has real power. So it's fantasy but not myth; the point seems to be to make poignant One-Eye's awareness of his fate. Mikkelsen's intensely stoic performance offers few openings for empathy, however. If we're moved, it's when we recognize the circumstances that will fulfill his final vision, why it will happen. His foreknowledge of his fate allows him not only to accept it, but to make an offering of it. The film's ultimate question may be: in such a world, what makes a meaningful death? That his final act is arguably the most Christian act in the film is an additional irony. Whether Refn could get the same effect without the selective spiritualism is debatable. Whatever you decide, Valhalla Rising is still an admirable effort with just about the right mix of grime and grandeur, violence and virtue. As arthouse action films go, it's pretty good.