The Long Ships
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Movie Reviews of The Long Ships
Movie Review: Where is that golden bell?!
Summary: 3 Stars
Finding a good viking film is never an easy task. One must wade through a lot of bad movies before discovering that rare gem. The 1964 lusty epic "The Long Ships" is not a gem. In fact, it is so laughably bad as to be amusing - but that's a good thing.Certainly not as horrid as "The Norsemen," but far inferior to "The Vikings" and "The 13th Warrior," this film tells the tale of a band of vikings in search of a huge golden bell. Led by Richard Widmark and Russ Tamblyn (that's right, Russ Tamblyn), these colorful warriors steal a ship, oar through a maelstrom and battle Moors, all the while trying to find that darn golden bell.
Sidney Poitier, starring in probably the worst film of his career, is the leader of the Moors. He's got a sexually frustrated wife back home who's irritated with his obsession with finding this golden bell. Everyone's looking for the golden bell. I suppose when found, it can be melted down and provide untold riches for all involved. Which is really kind of a shame, because when it rings, it makes such beautiful music.
Anyway, Poitier and the Vikings reluctantly join forces to find the golden bell - which is about 20 feet tall. Such a golden bell must be awfully heavy, but it's carted around on a Gilligan's Island-like raft and pulled by a few horses once they reach land. At one point the bell falls down a cliff, killing a lot of vikings, and then oddly floating on the ocean. Thank goodness it didn't sink because I don't think viking scuba gear had been invented yet.
Oh well, I first saw this film as a child and thought it was the greatest darn film in history. It plays like a comic book, with Richard Widmark delivering Indiana Jones wisecracks throughout. It's a lot of fun if in the right mood and the battle sequences are exciting. The sets are also appropriately elaborate.
The film clocks in at over two hours and it drags because of it. But to edit "The Long Ships" down would mean to delete the scene where the vikings stumble upon a female harem. Rather than escape with their lives, they decide to sample the wares, which of course leads to chaos. I was half expecting John Cleese to make an appearance any second.
Movie Review: Unabashed western racism......
Summary: 3 Stars
The Long Ships is an excellent example of Eurocentric cinema. This film has to rank right up there with "Gunga Din" for unabashed western notions of white superiority. Although not nearly the motion picture Gunga Din is, the tone is just as racist. The Vikings, a historical scourge in Europe are actually presented as the heroes vis-a-vis "the evil Moors", which in reality contributed more to medieval western civilization than any of the other great empires. The mere fact that the Vikings were a white, blond people qualified them as heroes to the audiences of 1964, athwart the Moors who are presented as dark, cruel and of all things MUSLIM! This is white, Christian hysteria at its worst! The fact that it is historically inacurate and comical is not important, (in reality the best known battle between Moors and Vikings was off the coast of modern-day Galicia, Spain in the 10th century where the Moorish empire of al-andalus under Aderahman III's reign, routed a contingency of Viking warriors) the real value of the film is in presenting the most egregious example of Eurocentrism in the popular culture of the west. If anyone wanted to know how western popular culture was informed by colonialism and empire, one need only to watch films like this or read the great works of Kipling and Conrad. We must also note that the film opened in 1964 as the decolonization process was well under way in Africa. Who do you think the villains were for western audiences watching the evening news back then? I dare say not possibly the dashing blond Europeans as portrayed in "The Long Ships"?Movie Review: Mediocre film based on a great but little read novel
Summary: 3 Stars
Like most reviewers here I saw this film when I was a kid, and at the time loved it. In fact, I saw it many times and loved it until.... in high school I got around to reading an English translation of the Swedish novel it was very loosely and I mean VERY LOOSELY based on, "The Long Ships" or "Red Orm" by Frans Bengtsson, one of the best selling novels ever printed in Sweden. The book blew me away and anyone else I've met in the last 40 years that ever read it also recalls it as one of the best novels they ever read. For me this film this is an extraordinary example of how a great piece of literature can get mangled almost beyond recognition by Hollywood into a silly but mildly entertaining motion picture.Movie Review: Aging
Summary: 3 Stars
As a kid I loved this movie. Seeing it now as an adult it is not as much fun. Maybe I'm spoiled by todays special effects which can make anything look the correct period without resorting to cheesy props and make battles look so real. I also realized that the acting wasn't so great either. Still it is fun enough to watch. If you like films like 300 Spartans, Genghis Khan and The Vikings, then this is along the same line. A better Viking/Moor movie is the 13th Warrior.Movie Review: Looking for a big, golden bell
Summary: 3 Stars
There was a lot of great talent in this film, Widmark being the prominent name, and the plot had potential but the way this thing was written... it just never quite reached the status of a great film. There are so many minor plot flaws in this thing that it really gets annoying at time (The Vikings didn't realize their ship had a black sail until they unfurled it? Rolfe SWAM all the way from North Africa to Norway?) but it can be a fun movie at times.