Alfred le Grand, vainqueur des Vikings

I liked this. Set in England in the 870s it tells the story of one of the great Kings in history. Hemmings does a great job as the complicated cynical Alfred who wants to be a priest but is forced into becoming King because his leadership qualities are badly needed against the marauding Danes. Hemmings Alfred is a formidable character but he's refreshingly no Hollywood hero. The battle scenes are excellent when you consider this was made on a low budget way back in 1969. There's a great aerial shot of a battle focusing on Alfred who's just come from the monastery to answer his country's call, giving off the impression that while he might prefer to be a holy man of letters, he can still effortlessly slide into the battlefield in an I can take or leave this manner. Hence his greatness.

A pretty decent film overall. "Chapters" in the story change with a gimmicky visual effect of Hemmings' face looking at itself in transition (from would-be priest to young king, from ruler to man on the run, etc.), it's sometimes hard to catch the names of the individual characters (and the final credits don't help much), and the battle scenes (though staged well) might be seen as overlong. But the film tells its story effectively, brings the characters and events to life and gives us a nice look at 9th century England, and how its people rallied around a king who learned from his early mistakes. I found the actors believable in their roles, the interpretation of events plausible and came away feeling like I knew something about King Alfred and his thoughts. Wouldn't take it as light entertainment, but would recommend it as dramatised history. --Of course, Hemmings' Alfred relies on cleverness, while York's Viking leader Guthrum leans mainly on bravado; familiar parts for both.

"Alfred the great" is an entertaining film with perhaps too much battle scenes.The two leads are convincing but the part of the queen is too underwritten.

The first scenes between David Hemmings and Prunella Ransome are good though: an educated prince who knows the Bible by heart and whose only ambition is to become a monk;an ignorant virgin under her father's thumb who uses her for political reasons.

Then comes Michael York ,the villain who's got twenty concubines and who falls for his enemy's wife .

This is the story of a reluctant king who believed in peace and love and finally discovers that in those troubled times (the 9th century) you had to be cruel to be kind .

Like this?try these...

Richard Fleischer: the Vikings 1958

Jack Cardiff:The long ships 1964

Confession; I have not seen the movie, but I do have some interesting facts to share about the making of the movie: Many of the battle scenes were filmed in Ireland using Irish army regulars as extras. The men learned the marching chants and what you hear in the movie is at least in part the actual chants of the extras.

Some of the men earned extra money by doing some of the riskier shots (guys carrying kicking and screaming women for example; my Father was one such extra and earned his extra money by lying on the battlefield and permitting a horse to walk up to his 'body' and then circle around his head; some extras were unwilling to risk being stepped on, but my father's familiarity with horses convinced him that the horse would avoid stepping on a person).

The Viking ships were motorized with oarsmen acting to produce the realistic effects. One boat was offered to the local boy scouts at the end of filming, but was scooped up by a buyer before the deal was closed.

After days of shooting with large numbers of extras on the shores of the River Shannon near Athlone, the crew would repaint the brown grass using large buckets of green paint.

Although not a review, I hope this information is of interest to the site visitors, it comes from the recollections of my Father. Cheers!

Like me numerous people commenting on this film have done so from memory and have not seen the film since its original release in 1969. This must be indeed be testimony to its lasting appeal for, strangely, it would appear that this film has not been released on DVD/Blu-ray. I will not discuss the historical content which seems to have met with rather mixed reviews (failing memories?) but I shall concentrate instead on the off-screen relationship of the principal protagonists played by David Hemmings and Prunella Ransome. Hemmings was, by his own admission, a 'Jack the Lad' who when asked to kiss Ransome in rehearsal did so in a manner that can only be described as being in the French style. Ransome was so furious that she refused to speak to him offset and in fact there was no communication between them again for nearly thirty years. Hemmings eventually apologised at a function they were attending and it was their final meeting for they were both dead within 4 years. The cause of Ransome's death has never been made public.