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The Vikings is one of those films for which director Richard Fleischer gets no respect. Fleischer was a director capable of making supreme entertainments, including such classic crowd pleasers as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Narrow Margin. The man made a bunch of terrific movies, but he gets no respect. When told that his co-director on Tora, Tora, Tora was to be Fleisher rather than John Ford, Akira Kurosawa dropped out of the project because he didn't believe Fleischer was his peer (he was replaced by Kinji Fukasaku, in many ways a director similar in stature to Fleischer). While Fleischer may NOT have been on the same level of greatness as a Kurosawa or a Ford, that's not to say he's a bad director. He's not an auteur or an "artiste," but that's not what his films aspire to in the first place. Fleischer is an entertainer, pure and simple, and he is very, very good at it.

The Vikings isn't a great movie, but lord almighty it's a fun movie. All of Fleischer's movies tend to be fun movies. The project was Kirk Douglas's from the get-go, and Douglas chews the scenery with great aplomb, unrestrained by Fleischer or anyone else. Tony Curtis is miscast as Douglas's half-brother, but tries gamely. Janet Leigh is very yummy to look at as the woman who comes between them. Beyond Douglas, the film belongs to Ernest Borgnine, who seems to be completely in tune with the raping and pillaging lifestyle of the vikings. All of this is pretty standard stuff for a period film from the 1950s. This one is goofier than most, in part because the vikings are the linear ancestors of the frat boys in Animal House.

But the film has a trump card.

The Vikings was shot in Norway by the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Cardiff, as those in the know will attest, was a mighty god with a camera. Parts of this movie are suffused with a kind of primal lux aeterna that channels the dark ages in a way that most epics of the day could only dream about. The film is jawdroppingly beautiful to look at. Of course, Cardiff gets most of the credit for the film, which is deceptive. If the photography were the end all of the film, you would have a glacial art film. And that's NOT this film. The collision between the barbarian antics of the vikings themselves and the magnificence of the scenery is what makes the film fascinating. It's what makes the film fun. That tension is orchestrated by the director, not the cinematographer. And that's why Fleischer doesn't get enough credit.

In any event, The Vikings is enormously entertaining. Even if you can't find it at your local video store, it can be had relatively cheap from the internet. A splendid time is guaranteed for all....

1/13/06