The Long Ships ** (1964, Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Russ Tamblyn, Rosanna Schiaffino, Oscar Homolka) – Classic Movie Review 4434

Richard Widmark is absurdly cast as Rolfe, a Viking adventurer, and Sidney Poitier not much better as Prince Aly Mansuh, leader of the Moors, who come to blows over the legendary Golden Bell, made of pure solid gold and called ‘The Mother of Voices’, in director Jack Cardiff’s amusingly daft, noisy and boisterous 1964 international adventure epic The Long Ships.

Cardiff’s costly movie ($3 million) didn’t exactly ring loud bells at the international box office. But Berkely Mather and Beverley Cross’s screenplay (based on a novel by Frans Bengtsson) tries hard to be intelligent, literate and historical. And the movie always looks good, as it should, since it is directed by an important cinematographer and shot (in Technicolor) by another important cinematographer, Christopher Challis.

Gold would not have rung loud bells, anyway. It is soft and non-resonating, so a bell made of solid gold would go clunk rather than ring.

Among the eccentric cast, Russ Tamblyn leaps about athletically as Widmark’s sidekick Orm, Rosanna Schiaffino plays Aly Mansuh’s wife Aminah, and Oscar Homolka gets drunk as Krok while building long ships.

If it were not so violent it would suit a family audience quite well. However it has a UK:PG TV rating and a UK:PG video rating, cut by 13 seconds (1988) to edit shots of horse-falls. The UK cinema version was cut for violence.

Also in the cast is a bunch of British worthy actors, led by Colin Blakely, Lionel Jeffries, Clifford Evans, Gordon Jackson, Henry Oscar and David Lodge. Further down the cast are Beba Loncar, Paul Stassino and Jeanne Moody.

It is a UK Yugoslavian co-production, shot in the former Yugoslavia. Poitier said Belgrade (now the capital and largest city of Serbia) was the worst location he had filmed in.

The Long Ships runs 126 minutes, is made by Warwick Film Productions and Avala Film, is released by Columbia Pictures (1964), produced by Irving Allen, scored by Dusan Radic and designed by John Hoesli.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4434

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