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Viking Movies

Vic Sage May 06 2011 11:05 AM Edited 5 time(s), most recently on May 06 2011 12:03 PM

In honor of the upcoming THOR, i offer this selected filmography of the often overlooked Viking movie subgenre. PRINCE VALIANT (1954) - First big Hollywood hit Viking movie, this comicstrip adaptation features young Robert Wagner as the viking prince with the bad haircut in the court of King Arthur. Played straight, despite its ludicrous script. SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN and the SEA SERPENT (1957) - typical low-budget Roger Corman exploitation flick. THE VIKINGS (1958) - Richard Fleisher directed this rousing epic adventure, with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas as viking brothers and Ernest Borgnine their dad, a viking chief. Dated sure, but tons of fun. And that haunting theme music, with the french horns in the distance sounding like viking horns, has stayed with me since i saw it as a kid on the 4:30 movie. Around this time, the Italian film industry picked up the Viking movie and ran with it (as it also was doing with westerns and sword-and-sandal epics, and later horror films) often with Cameron Mitchell in the lead, including LAST OF THE VIKINGS (61), THE INVADERS (61) (a visual feast directed by Italian horror auteur Mario Bava), THE TARTARS (61) (with Orson Welles!), ATTACK OF THE NORMANS (62), and VIKING MASSACRE (65) (a lesser Bava entry). LONG SHIPS (1964) - This lush UK co-production featured viking Richard Widmark and Moorish prince Sidney Poitier (as the villain!), in a light-hearted adventure romp, akin to THE CRIMSON PIRATE'S tongue-in-cheek take on pirate movies. ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD - Lame Disney fantasy; Victorian-era Brit explorers find a lost colony of Vikings "at the top of the world'. THE NORSEMAN (1978) - Just as sword-and-sorcery B movies would soon start spewing out of Hollywood's underbelly, first did this viking "epic" with Lee Majors, about Vikings in America. A disaster. ERIK THE VIKING (1989) - Monty Python's Terry Jones directed this Pythonesque spoof with Tim Robbins as a reluctant viking who didn't care too much for raping and pillaging. Not as funny as it should have been. 13th WARRIOR (1999) - Antonio Banderas as a Spanish courtier stuck inside the Beowulf saga; an overlooked gem. PATHFINDER (2007) - this Viking / Native American story should have been good, but it was a disaster. The slap-dash editing suggests last-minute surgery that tried to save it, or may have ruined it, but i don't think there's been a "director's cut" so we'll never know. BEOWULF (2007) - Robert Zemeckis used his "motion capture" technique for this animated version of Neil Gaiman's excellent adaptation of the Scandinavian myth. Gaiman makes the story work better (and more coherently) than it ever has before, but as usual the motion capture animation is life-deadening and annoying. Still, pretty good overall. OUTLANDER (2008) - Jim Caveizal as an alien soldier who crashlands amongst 8th century vikings; they team up to battle an alien monster. The best B movie you never saw. VALHALLA RISING (2009) - gritty low-budget Danish indie; reviews indicate it has some merit. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) - charming animated feature about a young viking who befriends a dragon. Sweet fun.

The Second Spitter May 06 2011 11:20 AM Re: Viking Movies

Vic Sage wrote: ERIK THE VIKING (1989) - Monty Python's Terry Jones directed this Pythonesque spoof with Tim Robbins as a reluctant viking who didn't care too much for raping and pillaging. Not as funny as it should have been. Man, i remember this movie as the first time I left a movie theatre overwhelmingly disappointed. I'm convinced the studio read the concept and approved without reading the script.

Vic Sage May 06 2011 11:26 AM Re: Viking Movies

i feel your pain.

Edgy MD May 06 2011 11:32 AM Re: Viking Movies

Conan is sort of set in a Scandanavian-like place just outside the fringes of Rome-like receding empire, but I guess doesn't quite qualify. Necessary conditions for a Viking movie [list][*]Horned helmets[/*:m] [*]Round shields[/*:m] [*]Long boats with square sails and optional dragon's heads on them.[/*:m][/list:u] Nice list. Somehow Hollywood has been sane enough to never make a feature-length live action Hagar the Horrible film. One less job for John Goodman.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr May 06 2011 12:27 PM Re: Viking Movies

BEOWULF (2007) - Robert Zemeckis used his "motion capture" technique for this animated version of Neil Gaiman's excellent adaptation of the Scandinavian myth. Gaiman makes the story work better (and more coherently) than it ever has before, but as usual the motion capture animation is life-deadening and annoying. Still, pretty good overall. I think Hollywood's still looking for the medium that will fully realize the potential of a Gaiman script. Coraline was close.

Vic Sage May 06 2011 12:30 PM Re: Viking Movies

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: BEOWULF (2007) - Robert Zemeckis used his "motion capture" technique for this animated version of Neil Gaiman's excellent adaptation of the Scandinavian myth. Gaiman makes the story work better (and more coherently) than it ever has before, but as usual the motion capture animation is life-deadening and annoying. Still, pretty good overall. I think Hollywood's still looking for the medium that will fully realize the potential of a Gaiman script. Coraline was close. i didn't like CORALINE, either as a book or a movie. but i loved STARDUST. And the low-budget BBC miniseries of NEVERWHERE is highly recommended to afficianados.

Edgy MD May 06 2011 12:37 PM Re: Viking Movies

I must of missed something about Stardust. We made it a half hour into it and bailed. It felt corn-fried and Disneyfied, as obvious as the day is long and not enchanting at all. Susanna Clarke is a fantasy writer we've enjoyed a lot, and she'll likely be adapted onto the screen in a big way. She's enough of a Gaiman fan that she's set some of her stories in his fantasay world, so I'm resisting the temptation to judge based on the adaptation.

Vic Sage May 06 2011 01:46 PM Re: Viking Movies Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 06 2011 02:25 PM

Conan is sort of set in a Scandanavian-like place just outside the fringes of Rome-like receding empire, but I guess doesn't quite qualify. Conan takes place during Robert E. Howard's "Hyborian age", approximately 14,000 BC to 10,000 BC, whereas the Viking age was roughly 8th century to 11th century. So that's about 11,000 years earlier than Vikings. Also, as a Cimmerian, Conan's descendants were Gaelic/Celt, not Scandanavian. Conan is only similar to a Viking in that both have come to be seen as products of the "noble savage" tradition of 19th-century style of Romanticism that Howard was steeped in. Necessary conditions for a Viking movie * Horned helmets * Round shields * Long boats with square sails and optional dragon's heads on them. necessary elements for viking movie -- It must relate in some way to the 8th-11th century Scandanavian seafaring warrior culture of the "Viking Age", or to the subsequently romanticized depictions of same, including but not limited to: - long ships; - paganism; - conquest and/or exploration; - horned helmets and battle axes; - scandanavian geography and climate - at least a little pillaging; - and drinking beer out of a skull would be ok too

Vic Sage May 06 2011 01:53 PM Re: Viking Movies

I must of missed something about Stardust. We made it a half hour into it and bailed. It felt corn-fried and Disneyfied, as obvious as the day is long and not enchanting at all. i loved the graphic novel it was based on, and i have a raging hard-on for Claire Danes. So all bets are off.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr May 11 2011 02:21 PM Re: Viking Movies

Dane-ish erection notwithstanding, you weren't the only one who liked it. Stardust had the shell of Disney to it, but with the cracked Gaiman heart beating strong beneath. (DeNiro, though, does have the air of "Eh? Check me out, I'm a fancy pirate over here!")

Willets Point May 11 2011 02:23 PM Re: Viking Movies

Vic Sage wrote: i have a raging hard-on for Claire Danes. So all bets are off. Vic Sage / Willets Point similarity score rising.