The Long Ships

The film starts telling the following legend :¨And so, by the storm's fury he lost all he loved most in this world, his ship and his shipmates. But he was ashore alone , the only survivor. Monks found him and took him to their monastery where they tenderly nursed him never asking his name of his country.And gradually he grew stronger, as he slowly recovered, he saw that the holy men collected tiny colored stones. And with great patience and loving skill made pictures from them to decorate their chapel. And the pictures told a story. A story of a mighty bell made of solid gold. For days without number the holy men labored to make this mighty bell, They made ready a great cauldron and under it fire burned day at night. They came of gold. Gold idols, golden rings taken from the harems, from wives, from princesses, from courtesans. Gold money, gold from ships, mines and caravans, from mosques , palaces and sacred cities. Gold stolen by robbers from from the tombs of pharaohs , golden cups, golden plate. Treasure won by conquering armies, And from its hiding place came the fabulous chain of Nimrud of the 10.ooo golden links. A last the huge cauldron was so filled with molten gold that no more could be added. Then I was poured into a gigantic clay mold. For days it stood cooling until the hour struck when the clay was torn away . And so the great golden bell came shinning into the world. They smoothed it, they polished it. Then they called on it to speak, And they ran back in terror and in awe. And covered their ears. For this was the mother of voices¨.

Rolf (Richard Widmark) as leader of a band of Norsemen along with his brother Orn (Russ Tamblyn) stealing a ship sets sail for the unknown land in search of a missing solid-gold bell . Meanwhile they kidnap a Viking princess (Beba Loncar) and hold her for security. Widmark heading off a mysterious place, defending his people and battling for his survival against mutinous crew , evil oppressors(Clifford Evans) and especially fighting Moorish prince named El Mansuh(Sidney Poitier) There're also some gorgeous babes ( Rosanna Schiaffino, Beba Loncar) around to offer us certain comfort .

This enjoyable picture packs adventures, thrills, good action scenes and is very amusing. Great location footage of booth Yugoslavia and Great Britain. Shimmer and glimmer cinematography by Christopher Challis. Spectacular and evocative musical score by Dugan Radic. The picture is well directed by Jack Cardiff (Dark of the sun, The girl on the motorcycle, My Geisha).

This basic costume epic belongs to Viking genre such as : The classic ¨The Vikings(1958)¨ by Richard Fleischer with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, ¨The Norseman(1978) ¨ by Charles B Pierce with Cornel Wilde and Mel Ferrer ; ¨The Viking queen(1967)¨ by Don Chaffey with Don Murray and Andrew Keir; ¨The Viking sagas(1995)¨ by Michael Chapman with Ralph Moeller , among others.

They say you shouldn't re-visit things you dug when you were a kid, because you'll be disappointed. I remember being blown away by 'The Long Ships' on b/w TV when I was about 8, and I knew that the film wasn't going to live up to my memories - but it could have been a lot, lot worse.

'The Long Ships' was made at the tail end of the historical togas and sandals epics of the fifties and early sixties, and it doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously as 'Ben Hur', 'El Cid' or 'The Egyptian'. It's basically a good old adventure yarn, and it's still actually a load of fun, even if it gets a bit bogged down in the middle.

Richard Widmark is a Viking (only slightly more ridiculously than his nemesis Sidney Poitier as a Moor) who is shipwrecked and thinks he has found the location of the fabled 'Mother of Voices' - a gigantic golden bell as tall as 'three tall men', made by monks somewhereorother. In his efforts to capture it he and his crew constantly run up against Poitier who has similar designs. All of this leads to some rather improbably rapid voyages from one end of Europe to the other, apparently accomplished overnight - but the film makers obviously didn't give a lot of priority to plausibility, and neither should the viewer.

Widmark plays his hero more like Indiana Jones than Ben Hur. There is a good deal of comedy, and a couple of scenes even feel like they belong in a 'Carry On' movie (particularly the scene where the Vikings bust into the Harem, which might have been offensive if it wasn't so deliberately slapstick).

Sure, it's an adventure drama, but if you're expecting the sort of grave, Biblical epic which had been popular for most of the previous decade, look somewhere else. 'The Long Ships' is a good old-fashioned adventure yarn, and as such is still pretty good fun; at least as much as modern equivalents like 'The Mummy'. I'm giving it a strong 6.0.

Churned out at pretty much the end of the cycle of epics, THE LONG SHIPS was NEVER meant to be taken seriously! Richard Widmark understood that - what's with this plethora of pseudo-intellectual reviews decrying cinematic and plotline aspects here. Wake up and smell the roses people, this is one for all and ALL for fun!

Even Poitier, hamming it up as OTHELLO with a wicked hairdresser, was secretly having fun! The whole misbegotten tale of the fabled golden bell was little more than a cack-fest but by GOD was the musical score great or what? I can still hear Dusan's stirring theme now, and I only saw the flick once at its Sydney premiere in '63.

Action aplenty, outrageous script and despite accusations to the contrary here, some gung-ho cinematography. This was never gonna be up for any Oscars, Widmark, Homolka and three quarters of the cast in fact, saw to that!

Every Tale, fable, or legend has a basis in some small fact. In this film called " The Long Ships " we have a Viking reciting a legend which was once told to his people of a great bell which was as high as 'three tall men.' Said to have been created by the monks of Byzantium, in actuality, they had indeed cast one out of solid gold, but was small enough to be handed as a gift to the German emperor, for his personal chapel, during the middle ages. As with most 'fish' stories, the size of the bell grew with each retelling. For this movie, the seekers are Northmen, not Germanic knights as in the original tale. Still, the movie is entertaining enough due to the major stars in it. Here we have, Richard Widmark as Rolfe, a seafaring Viking who is captured by Aly Mansuh, the Moorish prince (Sidney Poitier) who threatens him with torture is he does not reveal its location. Then there is Russ Tamblyn as Orm, his very agile brother and then of course there is international star Oskar Homolka as Krok, who is their father. All in all, a good film, for an otherwise lazy afternoon. ****

In reading some of the other reviews I learned that The Long Ships was based on a rather serious work of medieval fiction. That's certainly did not come out in this film which has all the appearances of something that Vince McMahon might have directed.

I'm guessing that Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier and the rest of the cast wanted to do something that paid well without too much strain on the talent. In addition, Poitier for the only time in his career, got to play a villain. He hams up his part as a poor man's Othello with real relish.

There's a little Captain Ahab in Poitier's Othello impersonation as well. He's a Moorish prince obsessed with finding a legendary golden bell. When he hear's of Richard Widmark spinning tales in the market place for pin money he has him summoned.

Widmark escapes by diving out a window from a height and the next thing you hear from him is that he's washed up on Viking shores. I'm not sure the writers didn't want you to think he swam from Morocco to Norway either. Any how he tries to get a ship from dad, Oscar Homolka. The only ship available is the ship Homolka built for the Norse king. To insure the Norse king doesn't kill his Homolka, younger brother Russ Tamblyn kidnaps his daughter who he has a thing for in any event. And back they go to find the bell.

Richard Widmark is not known as a player who's best at comedy, but he seems to get in the spirit of the lightheartedness. Russ Tamblyn who was finding less and less employment as a dancer got to show a lot of athleticism in dueling sequences. The guy who seemed to be really enjoying making this film however was Oscar Homolka.

Jack Cardiff directed this film and he's probably best known as the United Kingdom's premier color cinematographer. The Long Ships has some of his best work and it also has a stirring musical score.

I saw this film in theaters as a teen and over forty years later I still enjoy this rollicking medieval romp.

Vince McMahon couldn't have staged it better.