Customer Reviews

King Richard & Crusaders [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having stolen the story idea from Robert Scott's THE TALISMAN, Warner Bros. of the 50's uses plenty of smaltz & zippered costumes along with desert daring-do. Yeah, it's very VERY dated & absolutely unauthentic, but Rex Harrison's portrayal of Saladin is NOT TO BE MISSED! Ah, sigh, to be in his harem...and Lawrence Harvey, bleached hair & all, does the best an Englishman can to impersonate a Scot. It's fun. It's flashy. You'll enjoy it over & over.

David Butler may have directed Calamity Jane and a slew of successful Doris Day pictures, but in 1954 he also directed one of the great on screen calamities, King Richard and the Crusaders, a well deserved entry in the original 50 worst movies of all time that pretty much killed off his career in features. For decades the epic genre got no critical respect, being regarded as spectacularly stupid fare for the less discerning masses, and it's scripts like this one that are the reason - the cast should have been paid danger money for uttering lines like "Go squat on your alps!" or the immortal "War, war! That's all you ever think about, Dick Plantagenet! You burner, you pillager!" (yes, Virginia Mayo really does say that). But far worse than being stupid is the fact that, once the shock of the atrocious dialogue wears off, it's also very dull: brief skirmishes and a tedious chase finale aside the Crusaders spend more time bickering among themselves than fighting Saracens in a Holy Land that looks just like Bronson Canyon and Chico, California.

Very loosely based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman to cash in on the success of Ivanhoe, at times it looks like it was designed as an Errol Flynn vehicle, although Laurence Harvey, with a quiff like a tsunami and a Scottish accent so bad you'll thank whatever god you worship when he drops it after the first scene, makes a poor a replacement for the ageing and ailing star (though fair dos, he does a neat line in leaping off a horse). George Sanders plays most of his scenes as Richard from his bed, and he probably wished he'd stayed there. Rex Harrison plays the 'Persian popinjay' Saladin like a cross between the King of Siam and the genie of the lamp in a very bad panto, which is pretty all you can do when you're saddled with lines like "These strange pale-eyed Goths, they show their hearts like the bumps on a pomegranate." Over in the villains' corner a grinning rabbit-like Michael Pate impersonates Michael Rennie for all he's worth while Robert Douglas reprises his Adventures of Don Juan shtick to decent effect. Yea, verily, it's enough to make you miss Henry Wilcoxen and Cecil B. De Mille. Still, it wouldn't be Christmas without a turkey...

Currently the film is only available on DVD in Germany as 'Der Talisman', and like many of Warners' German division's 50s titles, the transfer is poor - but it's the only way to see it in its original Scope ratio at the moment (although it does have a German title sequence, the film is English language with removable subtitles).

The fifties was Hollywood's decade of change... With television's continuing stronghold on the public, the film industry had to rethink itself into competing against the monster box and, in so doing, underwent a radical personality change...

Clearly, the only way to lure audiences back into the cinema was to provide them with something that was unavailable on television. The alternatives soon became apparent: new projection ratios that could in no way be matched by the small screen, epics whose production costs were beyond the reach of TV...

"King Richard and the Crusaders" begins with Richard the Lionhearted (George Sanders) and his allies having hardly set foot in the Holy Land on the Third Crusade when a group of treacherous nobles plans to kill Richard and take command of the whole operation...

Sir Kenneth (Lawrence Harvey) makes his appearance as a noble Scotsman, the only knight who is truly loyal to Richard... He warns the king about the traitors in his midst, and rides off to find evidence against them...

Virginia Mayo is Richard's cousin, Lady Edith, who is hopelessly in love with Sir Kenneth, but she can't marry him until he proves himself...

Rex Harrison plays the role of the Saracen ruler Saladin, who falls in love with Lady Edith... The motion picture makes it clear that it is Saladin, not Richard, who is the nobler and wiser chieftain through a series of intrigues which show the great Sultan playing physician, matchmaker and spy all the while Richard is being cheated by traitors and self-interested allies around him... In fact, the tricked king is moved to condemn to death his bravest knight and supporter...

Robert Douglas is Sir Giles Amaury, the treacherous knight who sneaks up to Richard's tent one night with a hired bowman... "Strike deep!" he urged, "this is no ordinary man!"

Very loosely based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, David Butler's "King Richard and the Crusaders" is a fun film, full of adventure and exotic locales, but absolutely far from Richard Thorpe's "Ivanhoe," poor in colorful characters and chivalry...

A pretty good movie considering the fact that it was made in 1954, years before Ben Hur, Spartacus, The 300 Spartans, Cleopatra, the Fall of the Roman Empire, El Cid and other classics. The story unfolds during the Third Crusade a.k.a. the Kings' Crusade (1189-1192), in the Holy Land with the combined armies of the English, French and Germans preparing for a showdown with Saladin's Saracens. The hero is a Scottish knight, who is an enemy of England, but loyal to King Richard (no explanation given/do not ask why or how).

On the positive side: a) some very nice desert shots and a beautiful looking castle, b) excellent costumes of Crusaders and Saracens, and c) a wonderful feel of History and the Crusades (accurate description of conditions found within the two camps i.e. Complete loyalty in Saladin's encampment and severe disunity in the Crusaders').

On the negative side: a) it is an old movie by modern standards with the battle scenes/tactics very much outdated, b) the acting is not as much "natural" as it is staged, one could say it is way too "theatrical" (the poses and all...), c) the Lady's accent is 100% American, definitely not the way the English King's cousin should sound like (do I hear Kevin Costner in Robin Hood?), while the Scott sounds nothing of the Highlands (King Richard at times does give off a little of Sean Connery though).

Strongly recommended to those who love History and the Crusades in particular. One should seriously start thinking about re-doing the movie or a similar Crusade-related one with today's technology...

Well, the film didn't follow the book but that's not surprising. This was an obvious B- movie for the masses. I did enjoy watching Rex Harrison ham it up as Saladin, he obbviously had a good time with the part. Virginia Mayo was gorgeous, Laurence Harvey was stiff/predictable, and George Sanders was a disappointing King Richard. Although acting like the real King Richard would be tough for most hollywood actors in the 50's. The close-up horse-riding scenes were silly (moving background - static horse) and the battle scenes were lame. The jousts were OK and the desert dune scene was fun. All-in-all it was what I expected from a low budget 50's flick.

djb

This has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen with a great cast. It's a ton of fun, it's super colorful, great characters, and has a beautiful musical score so if you can handle a stinker of a movie, it's a must-see. Straight out of the '50's Hollywood classic adventures and I love every minute of it. It would be great on Blue Ray.
A movie that's truly worth watching... just watch it with a sense of humor and enjoy the color, music, and the fun of watching a kinda funky movie.
BTW, there's one shot of Rex Harrison's stand-in riding one of the most beautiful chestnut horses I've ever seen. A beautiful, shiny copper coat with four white sox.

Good story about the Third Crusade in the Holy Land. Wish more movies were made dealing with that epic adventure. Costumes are great and historically accurate for historical picture. Did not like casting of King Richard or Queen Berengaria. Others were great but prefered casting of Saladin in Kingdom of Heaven. Should have carried a shorter title: The Talisman. Its title is a little bit winded.

Big budget doesn't always mean quality. The producers of this movie had plenty of money to spend to make this picture. However, it should stand as an example of how not to make a picture. Talents of a big-name cast are abused and wasted; this film is filled to the brim with lousy overacting. Also, the screenplay is not very historically accurate. Most viewers would probably stop and rewind the tape before seeing very much of this movie. If you watch this film on television, you'll probably change the channel to see what else is on.

Oh, this is a really bad movie! Having joined the film in medias res, when it was rewound for viewing again, I was surprised to find that Rex Harrison actually has top billing--the reason for my surprise was that at every turn, one had to be confronted with the untalented preening of Lawrence Harvey as an ersatz Errol Flynn "dashing" hero, offering self-satisfied King Richard (George Sanders) advice he really doesn't want to hear, and proferring love to Richard's cousin Edith (Virginia Mayo) even though she is too high born to be courted by a Scotsman like himself. He's a very bad Scotsman too; if George Sanders didn't keep repeating ad nauseum, "Never trust a Scot", one would quickly lose that thread. And there leering away whenever the limelight hits him, is our old favorite, Rex Harrison as the Saracen leader Saladin, though he first masquerades as an Arab physician who must save the life of King Richard, laid low by a poisoned arrow. That shooting part had also happened before I joined the film, so I was mystified as to why George Sanders was playing all his scenes from a bed, since he didn't convey mortal illness at all, just indolence. I usually enjoy Rex tremendously, but his shameless mugging, with rolling eyes and stilted speech is a tad too much to be borne. Evidently young Rex was often employed as an exotic foreigner, as in "Anna and the King of Siam", and his accent is pretty much the same here, so this might have been titled, "King Richard and the King of Siam" . If you want to see a better Hollywood movie about the Crusades, check out Cecil B. de Mille's "The Crusades"--less preposterous, and much better acted.

King Richard and the Crusaders is a good tall tale with lots of action and adventure with a good dose of comedy.