I coltelli del vendicatore

Cameron Mitchell and his stunt double take on the Viking hordes in this cheaply made Mario Bava film that carries a little more emotional weight than usual. This film cost $75,000 to make, which is surely really cheap even for 1966?

The story is this: jerk Viking Hagen has just returned from exile to his home town to claim the throne from himself, as the previous King, Arald, has seemingly drowned at sea. The only way Hagen can become King is to marry Arald's wife, Karin, but she has gone into hiding to get away from him, hiding with her son in a remote cottage. Hagen has his men scour the land looking for her, and ignores the prophecy of a strange old woman that a man is on his way to kill Hagen.

One day, hunky Cameron Mitchell turns up at the cottage looking for shelter and some food, and ends up saving Karin from two of Hagen's men in a rather violent fight. Turns out Cameron is a drifter who offers his services to Karin and starts training her son to be a fierce fighter, but also falls in love with Karin and sees the kid as some sort of surrogate son. This is all heading somewhere!

Everyone has a past and it's the past that comes back to haunt the characters in this film, as Cameron seeks both revenge and redemption and is actually quite believable as a man torn between his conflicting emotions. He's also hard as nails and takes down quite a few of Hagen's men with his throwing knives, even if his stunt double has a totally different colour of hair.

You can tell this was made cheaply, due to the limited sets, most of the action on the beach taking place in the one area, and a general sparse feel to the whole film, but then again you've got Mario Bava behind the camera, so everything looks better than any big budget film made last week with the most hi-tech CGI you can imagine. Plenty of action too, mainly Cameron taking on gurff Viking types.

He also gets a good performance out of Cameron Mitchell, who is prone to hamming it up in most of his roles. Here he exudes warmth and regret and finally, resignation, and his character does go on some kind of personal journey that ends in a bitter victory.

The last of Mario Bava's various peplums for the silver screen – although he would still have a couple more stabs at the genre for Italian TV – is also the last of four films (one of them in an uncredited capacity) he made with second-tier Hollywood star Cameron Mitchell. It seems rather incredible to me now that Italian producers were still trying, at this late stage, to emulate the commercially successful formula of THE VIKINGS (1958) – even down to dyeing their leading man's hair blonde like Kirk Douglas'.

The film starts atmospherically enough with a witch on a sandy beach waxing metaphysically about the doom-laden future lying in wait for a vanquished Queen (the rather wooden Lisa Wagner) and her treacherous pursuer (Fausto Tozzi, a forceful if decidedly one-note portrayal). Despite the expected bouts of lively action, the film is surprisingly intimate for this director and genre; in fact, an even stronger influence is that of SHANE (1953), complete with adulating kid – an aspect which is further reinforced by the various scenes of horsemanship and showdowns in dark taverns. Besides, even the action sequences rarely involve more than a couple of characters (including the climax set inside a cave), and the fact that it employs flashbacks (which help render the two male leads – the stoic and, decidedly, ambivalent Mitchell and the rugged Giacomo Rossi Stuart – more rounded than is par for the course) is largely a departure for this kind of film.

On the debit side, one must certainly note the sluggish pace. All in all, even if still perhaps his best peplum, this is a lesser Bava film – which I rather enjoyed more the first time around (ironically, watched via a pan-and-scan print on Italian TV!).

Knives of the Avenger (1966)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mario Bava directed this viking tale about a Queen (Lisa Wagner) and her son on the run from a ruthless warrior (Frank Ross) but a stranger (Cameron Mitchell) comes to their rescue. KNIVES OF THE AVENGER was apparently started by a different director but it was going so badly that Bava was brought on to clean things up. From what I've read, he pretty much re-shot the majority of the film and that's a good thing because once again his talent is head and shoulders above the rather standard screenplay. After the success of THE VIKINGS nearly everyone was throwing in these types of stories and the one being told here is rather bland and doesn't really stand out against the others. I watched this with my young son and he was confused as to why these vikings didn't have ships but I wasn't about to open up a conversation about budgets. For the most part the film remains entertaining thanks to the technical genius of Bava as well as Mitchell. Now I'm not going to sit here and say that Mitchell turned in a great performance but as a fan of his, it was rather fun seeing him in this role. I'm not certain he was the greatest choice for it but it was still fun seeing him. Ross is also very good in the role of the villain, although leading lady Wagner was a bit too stiff for her own good. There's some nice cinematography throughout the film and there's one brilliant sequence where we're in the dark, a man goes through a wall and then we're in the bright outdoors. How this was filmed and shot is certainly the highlight of the picture. KNIVES OF THE AVENGER has a pretty standard and boring story but it's brought to life by the positive aspects so fans of Bava will want to check this out.

In the ancient times, the savage and cruel warrior Hagen (Frank Ross) is chasing Queen Karin (Lisa Wagner) and her son Moki (Louis Polletin) to marry her and usurp the kingdom of her husband, King Arald (Jack Stuart). Karin and Moki are hid in a cottage in the woods living like peasants and they are protected by a stranger, the warrior Helmut (Cameron Mitchell), who is an expert in knives. Moki gets close to Helmut that teaches him how to hunt and fight and later Karin discloses to him that three years ago, her husband traveled in a ship to overseas to seek grains to his starving people. The vessel wrecked in the coast of Britain and since then they have had no news about Arald. Further she tells that Hagen was the responsible for the starvation since he had broken the truce between the kingdoms of Arald and King Rurik and killed his wife and son. Thirsty for revenge, King Rurik had invaded her kingdom with his warriors and killed the people and raped the women including her in her honeymoon, but spared the life of Arald. Helmut, who is actually King Rurik, falls in love for Karin and questions whether Moki is his son.

This is the first action movie of Mario Bava that I have seen and I found it an underrated tale of revenge and redemption. The screenplay is very well written, disclosing a dramatic story, and supported by great direction and acting and magnificent cinematography. In the end, the viewer is never sure whether Moki is the son of Rurik or Arald but the tears of Karin might indicate that she knows the truth about the fatherhood of Moki. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

This is a good film, Bava & Cameron Mitchell both do good work imo, the soundtrack is excellent & there are a couple real gems in this film regarding Bava's visual strengths. One such scene shows the bad guy galloping off linearly away from the screen zig zagging through hills descending into a valley as the soundtrack thunders & his descent has a strange visual extrapolation to it that I'm still not sure how Bava achieved, you have to see it.

Another such scene is when Mitchell reveals his face from under his helmet with the burning village surrounding him, very impressive visuals! Again, the music & Bava's commanding sense of visual style come together for a moment of perfection.

This is really Shane redone as a Viking film & it's actually quite good. I recommend it however not to neophytes of Bava, there are other obviously more well known titles in his filmography that one should start with.

At some point every Bava fan should see this film. I need to see Eric the Conqueror, that one I still have not seen, I think Bava did 3 Viking themed films. BTW he was the special effects director for Steve Reeves original 'Hercules' film!