The Viking Queen

When Don Chaffey directed the historically ludicrous and rather camp dinosaur epic One Million Years B.C., he cleverly distracted viewers from the film's sillier aspects through the use of stunning stop-motion creature effects, and Racquel Welch's even more stunning chest. The result was a completely daft, but thoroughly entertaining piece of schlock cinema.

With The Viking Queen, an equally silly and factually inaccurate sword and sandal movie, he once again uses 'big breast diversion tactics'—only this time with less successful results. Perhaps Chaffey should have thrown caution to the wind and chucked in a T-rex or two!

Beautiful, pillow-chested model Carina plays Celtic Queen (yes... Celtic!) Salina of the Iceni, who is forced to pick up a sword and fight the Romans, despite the fact that her lover, Justinian, is their leader. Carina sure is gorgeous, but even her breath-taking looks and marvellous physique are not enough to prevent one from noticing her wooden acting, the dreadful script, and plodding direction.

Stay the course, and you will be treated to a couple of unintentionally hilarious scenes (of which the lowering of Romans into a fiery pit was my favourite), a smattering of partial nudity (nipple tassles spoil the fun), and a silly battle with Boudicca-style warrior women in chariots (with blades on the wheels) attacking Romans with glee.

But even these enjoyably dumb moments cannot stop The Viking Queen from being a merely mediocre effort.

Hammer Studios are, of course, most famous for their Gothic horror films but like any independent studio worth its salt, it chipped in with movies of many other genres that were popular at the time. Sword and sandal flicks were one such sub-genre that was favoured in the 60's and that led Hammer to make The Viking Queen. Set in 1st century Britain, it involves machinations between three sets of inhabitants of those islands – the indigenous Iceni people, the ruling Romans and the Druids. The drama revolves around the queen of the Iceni and the Roman governor, who fall in love but whose relationship has dark consequences.

This movie is historically about as accurate as Hammer's earlier One Million Years B.C. in which dinosaurs co-existed with well-groomed cave people. In this one we have a Viking queen - a few hundred years out and in the wrong country - lead the Iceni people – who were from a completely different part of the country - while the druids seem to worship Roman gods! But the film is hilariously unconcerned with such matters so neither should you be. And to be fair, if you roll with it this is a pretty successfully entertaining bit of hokum. The Viking Queen herself is played by a Finnish actress called Carita, her heavy accent makes her somewhat strange as the leader of the Britons but she has the requisite beauty that puts her into the same bracket as several other Hammer heroines. Like is normal for Hammer too, there are some pretty good character actors underpinning things, including Andrew Keir as the nasty Roman Octavian and Patrick Troughton as the progressively minded Briton, Tristam. Also, like Hammer, the film looks really handsome despite its low budget. The locations look great and the sets and costumes are all nice also. There's some salacious material included too to enliven things further such as a human sacrifice ceremony and a violent assault on the Iceni village by the rampaging Romans. It might all be nonsense but its pretty good nonsense.

Salina is the lovely daughter chosen by her dying Celtic father to succeed her as the royal ruler in Roman-occupied Britain, just after the time of Christ, because she would be the moderate one among his daughters--not too militant or to soft--she would have the best judgment in dealing with the Romans. This is immediately compromised because the Roman ruler Justinian (played by Don Murray) and she quickly fall in love. Her affections for him are partially stirred because issues involving Roman rule include religion, rites, and taxes, and Justinian is fairer than other less virtuous Romans in his orbit in being accommodating. The Celts also acknowledge the protection the Romans provide against bandits etc. However, the Celtic Druids will not allow the marriage of Salina and Justinian.

Trouble is instigated by the bad elements of the Romans and Celts--led by Roman honcho Octavian and Celtic merchants whose taxes have been raised while farmers with bad harvests have been given relief. This has been done to draw off Roman forces (including Justinian) from the seat of government and split them up to quell the scattered Celtic attacks, while the intrigues of Octavian and his schemers are orchestrated, and they turn the queen and her coterie against the Romans. (Note a principal Roman administrator is named Tiberian--do up the aura with those imperial nomenclatures.)

"The Viking Queen" has good visuals, and offers the viewer its attempt to portray the customs, dress, and Druid religious rites of the Celts. However, the title is a mystery--actually, maybe not--it is more dynamic than "Celtic Queen." Anyway, the women were sometimes dressed (or pictured) in ways just short of "revealing." The chief disappointment is the ending. Viewers want a certain type of ending in this type of movie, but it wasn't to be, and is a letdown as entertainment. However, recommended otherwise.

This was Hammer Films' sole foray into peplum territory: that it's not typical material for this outfit is also borne by the fact that the writing and producing credits aren't the usual Hammer stalwarts! Don Chaffey, who handles the proceedings efficiently enough, was something of an expert in the field - having directed Hammer's ONE MILLION YEARS, B.C. (1966) as well as the Ray Harryhausen extravaganza JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963).

Actually, the plot isn't all that different from that of THE LAST ROMAN (1968-9) which I watched recently: while the latter was low-brow and solemn but rather interesting, this is low-brow and silly but undeniably fun. Thankfully, there's intrigue (resulting in plenty of snarling), action and sadism - not forgetting the beautiful Irish locations - to keep one watching. Still, the lazy scripting is so obviously a mishmash of elements without any rhyme or reason that it somehow seems to think of Druids, Vikings and Greeks (all distinct in culture, geography and timeline) as one and the same people!!

With respect to the cast: Carita (whose only film this was) is actually not too bad in the title role - though necessities of plot and an inevitable romance with the enemy leader prevents her from donning armor and turn warrior before the last 20 minutes of the film proper!; Don Murray, saddled throughout with an unbecoming hair-do, tries to keep his dignity as best he can; Andrew Keir (as Murray's jealous aide and the true villain of the piece), Niall MacGinnis and Patrick Troughton actually give good performances; however, Donald Houston's hammy turn as the High Priest of the Druid community is wildly entertaining - and Wilfred Lawson is equally embarrassing as the doddering and moribund Viking King.

From the trying-for-sublime to the content-to-be-ridiculous. Carita, a Finnish model-turned-actress, is surprisingly credible (well, not really, but she's not as bad as one would expect) as window dressing turned queen Salina of the Britons, trying to keep her people's semi-sovereignty while romancing the Roman general Justinian (Don Murray, pretty darn bland) who is supposed to be keeping her and her people in check. What I liked about this most, apart from the nice location photography and the presence of 2nd Dr. Who Patrick Troughton as wise warrior Tristram was the slightly more complex than expected political intrigue of the thing, with druids, merchants, British nobles and Romans all playing off against each other. What I liked least were the very cheap, poorly choreographed battle scenes where hardly a drop of red paint is even to be seen, and the swords are so obviously dull and plaster that you can't help laughing at times. Still, Carita is cute and the pacing keeps one more interested than not.

DVD rental (double DVD with Vengeance of She watched previously).