The War Lord *** (1965, Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth, Maurice Evans, Guy Stockwell, Niall MacGinnis, James Farentino, Henry Wilcoxon) – Classic Movie Review 6484

Director Franklin J Schaffner’s 1965 historical drama film stars Charlton Heston, who plays Chrysagon, a medieval knight who starts trouble by trying to activate an old law of droit de seigneur in 11th-century Normandy.

This gives him the right to take someone else’s new bride, a law he activates because he is smitten by the appealing and attractive virginal village girl Bronwyn (Rosemary Forsyth).

Schaffner’s 1965 film is an intelligent, carefully handled version of Leslie Stevens’s play The Lovers, with a good sense of the strange look and feel of the period, as well as an exciting battle to top it off. It also stars Richard Boone (as Bors), Maurice Evans (Priest), Guy Stockwell, Niall MacGinnis, James Farentino, and Henry Wilcoxon.

Also in the cast are Sammy Ross, Woodrow Parfrey, John Alderson, Allen Jaffe, Michael Conrad, Dal Jenkins, Johnny Jensen, Forrest Wood, Belle Mitchell and Paul Frees.

It is written by John Collier and Millard Kaufman, shot in Technicolor and Panavision by Russell Metty, produced by Walter Seltzer, scored by Jerome Moross and Hans J Salter, and designed by Alexander Golitzen and Henry Bumstead.

It was a pet project of Heston, who involved himself in all aspects of the production. He wanted Stanley Baker for Stockwell’s role of Draco and Julie Christie to be his co-star as Bronwyn. But the studio vetoed Christie. Unfortunately the very American-seeming Boone and Farentino are miscast. Heston admitted in his 1978 diaries An Actor’s Life that he was not impressed by Boone’s performance.

It was filmed entirely in California.

Stevens’s play The Lovers premiered on Broadway with Darren McGavin as Chrysagon) Joanne Woodward in her Broadway debut as the virginal village girl, then named Duone. The flop play opened on 10 May 1956 and closed after only four performances.

Heston) and Evans went on to star in Planet of the Apes (1968), also directed by Schaffner.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6484

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com