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Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings has all the surface beauty of a glorious painting. As it should, given that masterful cinematographer Jack Cardiff was responsible for illuminating the fjords, the battle scenes, and burly he-man populating the frame. The Vikings is painted with light, to appropriate the title from a documentary about his work on Black Narcissus, and it’s a pity that the story isn’t up to the power and mystery of the images.
There’s a grandeur and heft to the film’s visual splendor that just isn’t met by a script that is purple prose through and through. There are two half-brothers, each unaware of their shared lineage, that war with each other over everything, including a virginal princess, and a barrel-chested king that spends much of his time soused on ale and devouring mounds of food. There’s the prerequisite storming of castles, warring between the old ways and emerging Christianity, and daring displays of macho hedonism. It’s simplistic and emphasizes brawn over brain routinely.
Into this world, actors like Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh are tasked with striking poses and playing archetypes. Curtis and Leigh seem a bit adrift at this and fall back on their pretty faces, which at times is more than enough given that they’re squarely the romantic leads. Douglas and Borgnine do much better by finding the right tone of machismo camp and chest-first delivery. Douglas, in particular, is quite dynamic while in a blurry of motion in the various action spectacles.
It all adds up to a grandiose and silly film that’s the stuff of Saturday matinees. By no means a long-lost classic in anyone’s body of work, The Vikings is at least a fun time. The atmosphere is so over heated with sexuality, the violence so persistent, the family melodrama buttressing against slapstick comedy so often that the entire thing becomes engulfing for its refusal to calm down. It’s pulp alright, but the good kind.
