The Warlord
by Franklin J. Schaffner
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charlton Heston, Guy Stockwell, Maurice Evans, Richard Boone, Rosemary ForsythDirector: Franklin J. Schaffner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 121 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Good Times Video
Movie Reviews of The Warlord
Movie Review: One of the Top Ten Historical Movies
Summary: 5 Stars
I think I first saw this film in the early 1970s on some "Saturday Night at the Movies" network showing. However, it was only in the 1980s after a period of deep historical study and a decade of involvement as a comptetitve fencer and also a participating instructor/actor at the original California Renaissance Faire that I saw this film again. It became one of my favorites in the genre. Since many other reviewers have done a fine job detailing the production values and plot, I would like to present an "insders" review, if I can.
I do this with the understanding of the reader that overall I rate the film and the areas of my criticisms as very darn good! Especially for 1965. Also, I think that many are missing one important consideration; This film presents its story in an almost non-sensational, understated way. This is one of the things that make it so realistic. Today's viewer might think it dull, but a knowledgeable viewer will recognize the realism of this approach as one of the outstanding values of it. Even the love story is realistic in my opinion. The female is a peasant virgin, raised illiterate and in a small world, secure in her ages old traditions of the Stone and the Tree of the Druids and taught to revere the powerful. When confronted by Chrysagon the first few times, she is realistically both attracted and afraid. He upset after their first meeting is because she sense her improper attraction and the trouble it can cause her. When they are at last together, she would have known nothing of the practices of love. So I find it refreshing that this beautiful peasant girl does not instantly become a wanton slut, seething with carnal lust. And Heston's character may have known women, but has not spent his life as one practiced in romancing a woman. So when they come together it is not a scene of face devouring, opened-mouth kissing so common today, (on film and otherwise) and vulgar gyrating on a bed. They would have both been as restrained and confused - and reverent - as they are protrayed in the scenes.
For the period, it is outstanding in its realistic battle scenes. There are only a few flaws with the fights and tower battle sequences. First, is my pet peeve, the crotch kick. It seems that this unrealistic ploy has been used in many films since the 1970s, but this one is unique in using it perhaps ten years before it became an almost standard move in the usual Western sword fight in any period. There are several reasons for it being badly out of place. First, anyone who has done any real fighting in his life knows that a crotch shot when the blood is up is pretty ineffective - a crotch shot works when the male is relaxed and not expecting it. This has actually been used in more than one movie as an amped up feminist era replacement of the slap in the face to a cad or rejected suitor. (Very tasteless and offensive to me even used that way). The fighting men of the period and long before and after wore a protection device called a "codpiece." It could be leather, or it may be found in all complete armor samples of this period. Even the Friesians would have had a leather codpiece. The codpiece renders the sword or polearm questionable let alone a foot or knee. To add to this, the testicles are a very small target and do retract a great deal when adrenlin is rushing through the system - and it always does, in a real fight. A real fighter doesn't intentionally risk his life for a lucky shot at his adversaries jewels. Finally, in this particular fight maneuver, Heston's character is realistically threatened with an axe, ready to fall. His reponse, a kick to the crotch is not only timed badly, no real warrior would let a crotch kick arrest his purpose, and combined with all the aforementions problems, is nothing less than a suicidal choice. But this is how the crotch kick is always used, as a suposed arrest of a threat on its way. I made my wife laught last night as we viewed the film again when I quiped, if crotch-kicking was so effective, all battles would revolve around crotch kicking matches. (Oh, that felt good - so glad to express this finally)!
Another problem with the action is the lack of realism in wounding. I don't mean that it should be more bloody, although that is a minor problem itself. No, I mean that the action suffers a bit from the old Hollywood action directing that hails from the theater - a sword need only touch a foe and he is dead. Realism would be better served if a some wounded were created and one blow did not fully dispatch every warrior. When the battle scenes are done there seem to be living and dead, with only a few wounded. The truth of all combat is that there are nearly always more wounded survivors than dead - except in a massacre.
With those criticisms I must again proclaim the overall the battle scenes to be well executed from a fighting and strategic point of view. The metal ring of the broadsword may be a little unrealistic, but its effect here was chilling, such a weapon welded by a professional is certainly something to fear! But what I love to watch over and over is the axe to sword fight in the opening fight between Chrysagon and the Freisian Chief. The Freisian cheiftain uses his axe to parry the sword in the most realistically skilled manner I have ever seen in any film! The tower siege is wonderfully done and presents a very realistic display of tactics of attack and defense, plus the likely individual heroisms that made medeival battle so fearsome. So many ready to die for their lords and leaders! It impresses the 21st century mind with the ideas of kith and kin - and tribe that seem to be all but gone from the Western World, and the idea so well put forward by LOTR that these values are the ones MOST worth fighting for and preserving. But in the tower battle, all the details are there. The casual viewer might miss for example the order given to barracade the stairs as the battle becomes more desperate for the Normans. Just then, the cavalry arives. Contrived perhaps, but without the rescue, there would be no story to report!
Now, Richard Boone - I agree with the reviewer who says that this man, like (Guy Stockwell)never got his due in Hollywood. Nearly everyone will know Paladin of "Have Gun Will Travel." (Richard Boone was a real life descendant of Daniel Boone. So is Pat Boone). I think Boone did a remarkable job here, protraying the sullen and dutiful bodygaurd Bors to Heston's Chrysagon. Only toward the end does the reality of the fix Chrysagon is in bring out the great acting and direction that reveals a remarkable father to child-like love between the two men. It is worth the movie just for that aspect. In 1965 this was a risky scene for any actor and I think it still is today. So well done, but again understatement is what impresses. No "Brokeback Mountain" subplot that would no doubt be included in a remake today.
Some reviews off the Amazon site has said that Rosemary Forsyth's character Bronwyn did not fit in and that she was miscaste and/or wooden. I disagree with that view and would present this replacement criticsim; Bronlynn looks exactly as a Celtic dweller on the North Sea in the eleventh century would have been expected to look like. It is the rest of her village that is miscaste. It seems as if the directors idea of a peasant village in the eleventh century would be filled with goons and circus freaks, infected with various unknown genetic and diseased abnormalities. The dwarf mascot was realistic enough however. (To the reviewer that doesn't see how he was moved against Chrysagon - I think it is plain enough in a typical (for this film) understated way. You have to see it happen - "between the lines." But it seems to me that the turning point after continued mistreatments by Draco, Chrysagon cuts that line that holds the boy prince of the Friesans as his slave and so severes the last bond to the Normans. His later appearance under the arm of a buxom peasant girl and some evidence that he had been cultivating acceptance among the villagers as his postion with the Normans seemed to be declining. The dwarf was a dwarf, but not dumb and not without pride.
I would contend that this village freak show would not be so. The first Roman reports of the Celts were that they were of exceeding beauty and the women were considered more beautiful than the most beautiful of Rome. When the first Germanic (relatives of these pre-Dutch peasants) were taken to Rome as slaves, they were named Anglos by the early Christians because their blonde hair, blue eyes and perfect features were literally named "Angels" by the clergy and converted as it was unthinkable that such anglelike beings could not be Christians. Bronwyn was typical, not an exception as the film seems to suppose. It must be admitted however, that Chrysagon's brother Draco does make her seem unremarkable by his remarks that seem to dismiss her. But then, the film makes a good case for Chrysagon's bewitchment by the mystical nature of his first encounters with her. How sad that today's vulgar "hook-up" has replaced that mystical romance that can occur when a man and woman meet. Today, we carry around far too much political/social baggage for the natural to unfold like this. (But not me, I was lucky!)
That brings me to the final set of comments from this windbag! Anyone who has studied or even partaken in Pagan or Wiccan ceremony will appreciate the very fair and honorable way that the "Old Ways" are represented in this film. Remarkable for 1965, but even more remarkable today! Contrary to current portrayals that seem to seek to level the European pre-Christians with the Aztec pre-Christians for some PC motivation, the Celts were not murderous savages with their rites full of human sacrifices. By the time depicted in this film, human sacrifice, a rare rite anyway, had completely disappeared from the surviving pagan regions of Europe. The other aspect of this presentation I really appreciated was the remarkable skill that the director ultilized the text - which he had to have read thoroughly, in depicting the many and huge compromises the Roman Church made institutionally and even locally as the Christianizing of this village demanded - all of this is overwhlelmingly supported by factual historical records, but hardly ever portrayed. In fact, I cannot think of any other movie except for "Gladiator" that does this even a little, if in a different manner. Even today, one may travel rural Europe and find local saints, left overs from local Pagan gods, especially in France and Spain. (But the "new" Baltic States has a Druid like region that seems to have survived the ages). The writer of "The Lovers" on which this film is based, had to have read "The Golden Bough" and even some of Ceasar's writings on the Gauls. Real understanding is shown and delivered with competence and skill as the priest constantly seeks to reconcile the demands of his "calling" with the reality he finds in his "diocese."
While I agree that it is no academy award winner, it deserves a lot more attention than it receives. Although I find all but one reviewer here seems to like this film as much as I do. I have owned a VHS copy for many years now, but I was surprised to see how expensive the dvd is here on Amazon. Has the dvd gone out of production?
But best of all, this film protrays an honorable man from an honorable family, downcaste from its standing by misfortune in battle and the loss of their father and the family fortune due to the very Friesians they again battle here. Chrysagon arrives with every intention to act as a loyal knight to his Duke and a chivalric knight to the peasants he is set to protect. But life has a way of complicating the best intentions and the man, berift of the tenderness of love for all his life risks all his honor and chance of regaining his and his families standing for love. Realizing the horror of his brother's death at his own hand and the political problems presented him all around, he chooses wisdom and charity rather than revenge in seeking to make amends and cancelling all threats. Here our Chrysagon shows what made his family great to begin with and why he will no doubt regain the Duke's favor in the end. The great ethical/moral lesson is made in a way even Tolkien or Lewis would applaud; the fallen man seeks redemption through intelligence and honorable acts in a crisis. We are left to feel that although his full penance may not be done, he will find redemption with his Lord Duke and finally be reunited with Bronwyn. And the Freisians, no longer the enemy will become allies. And so the historical tale of how Europe was brought to order out of The Dark Ages - is told.
Bravo!
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