The Long Ships

Going through a box of my dad's movies, I actually saw The Vikings first, but he said The Long Ships might be a little better. Throw in the fact The Vikings had Tony Curtis alongside Kirk Douglas and his terrifying chin divot, and The Long Ships it was.

You have Richard Widmark playing a Viking whose ship was wrecked, leaving him stranded on the Barbary Coast. He makes money on the street telling tales, including one of a glorious bell, tall as three tall men, and made of solid gold brought back from the Crusades*.

Rolfe has unfortunately chosen to tell this story in a town controlled by Aly Mansuh (Sidney Poitier), who is obsessed with finding that bell and bringing back all the gold the Crusaders stole. To the point he's basically frozen out his wife, Aminah (if perhaps not his harem).

Rolfe escapes before torture can start, and apparently swims all the way home. Where he finds his family in trouble. Their village built a funeral boat for their king, but he stiffed Rolfe's dad on the payment, claiming most of it was covering their late tribute payment. This is what you get for settling differences like merchants, rather than cutting the offenders head off like a real Viking. Rolfe's hellbent on getting that bell, so he ropes his brother and several other men into stealing the funeral boat (and the king's daughter, Gerda), and setting out, the king and his guys in hot (if incompetent) pursuit.

Then Rolfe wrecks that boat. Then he gets his guys captured by Mansuh's guys, has to agree to help find the bell to save them, there's fighting, so on and so on.

First things first. There's a really uncomfortable scene where the Vikings, having escaped confinement, stumble into the harem's quarters, at which point it becomes a rape party. Except it's set to this lively music and treated more like one of those silly brawls you see in older Westerns, where guys are swinging off chandeliers and stuff. It's played off like it's funny, which it really wasn't. So that's a problem.

The acting has to be largely carried by Widmark and Poitier, because they get most of the lines and time. Rolfe has a brother, Orm, played by Russ Tamblyn, but he seems to be there largely to look pretty and be in love with Gerda. There are signs he finds his brother very frustrating, but the film doesn't do enough with it. Poitier's character is obsessed with that bell, but they don't give him enough into why exactly. Is it simply because of the stolen gold? What does it represent to him, and why is he so focused on it he constantly rebuffs his wife. They do have him make a move on Gerda, which I guess we could take as a sign he's the sort of guy who considers everything within his view as his.

As for Widmark, I've mostly seen him in movies where he plays scarily intense, possibly psychotic characters. Like Road House (not the Swayze one), or The Bedford Incident. Here, Rolfe is more a character I could see Martin Lawrence playing. He's kind of a goof. Always talking, never thinking ahead, trusting in his moth's ability to get him out of trouble, apparently an inveterate liar given his repeated complaints that no one ever believes him. Widmark plays it less for comedy than Lawrence would, but there are certain similarities.

I would have liked to see more of Rosanna Schiaffino as Aminah. While Gerda is mostly there to look pretty, be scared, and have guys interested in her, Aminah's getting things done. If she's angry with Mansuh, she tells him. If she knows he's fooling around with Gerda (or trying to), she'll have Rolfe brought out of the cell and work out a deal with him behind Mansuh's back. Oh, and fool around a little with him in the process, because why not? Mansuh is still the top dog in the area, but you get the feeling Aminah rules as much as she can manage without his knowing it. I'd be curious to know how much of the day-to-day decision making was her responsibility with him so tied up in the bell.

One other thing. For a movie with so many fight scenes, they were really poor at choreographing fights. Everything is ugly, clumsy, guys clearly not knowing how to ride horses or fake fight. The strategies used make no sense, it's terrible. I know it wasn't a "fight" movie, per se, but if they're going to do that much of it, they could at least put some effort into it.

* But wait, you say, wouldn't a solid gold bell weigh thousands of pounds and sound crummy? And I - having also seen Futurama - would tell you you it's mostly for show. But no, actually it's quite impressively loud.