Os Cavaleiros Teutônicos

Polish cinema is always good at adapting heroic war films like Potop or Ogniem I Mieczem. This one, based upon the book of the Noble Prize winner, Henryk Sienkiewycz, is a real hit. The directors managed to adapt this large and serious historical novel to a screen version. The plot tells about the wars between Poland and the Knights who were called the Crerss Bearers and lived in old Prussia nearby. The thrilling story tells about two brave and valiant Polish knights, Macko and Zbyszek. This story has everything - love story, tragedy of the Polish people being oppressed by the knights of Prussia, the heroic struggle, and on top of it all, the Grunwald Battle, that was the deafening defeat of the Prussian knights and lead to the changes in their history after that. Music, operators' work, actors' play, especially the parts of Henryk Borowski and Mieczyslaw Voit are impeccable. This is a fine example of the classic Polish battle movies.

Greatest Polish big budget film for me. Far, far better than today's huge budget craps that are released on DVD market, craps most of them from Eastern Europe, where CGI is galore. This sixties movie amazed me, even dubbed in French. A pure masterpiece, which has nothing to envy to Hollywood material. Excellent camera work, jawdropping cast and acting. Such movies are so rare to find, especially from Eastern Europe. If you crave for Medieval films, with plenty of extras, battles, gruesome and awesome battles, pulled by outstanding production design, this film is definitely for you. I don't know the other movies from this director, political oriented, but if I have the opportunity to watch them, I won't miss.

It is a good film and - as some reviews pointed out - of quite a big importance (and sentimental value!) to Poles. As every nation, Poles delight in productions illuminating the splendor years or turning points in their history, so the film has a guaranteed place in the pantheon of Polish films. It is begging for a remake though. If it is to be equally enjoyable for younger generations technical anachronisms and especially lengthy scenes need to be taken care of. The plot is great, so it definitely deserves a lifting. Apart from the extraordinary number of horses and extras, and Guiness record long battle scenes the film is famous for 2 amazing goofs: 1. In one of the battles, far beyond the herd of knights, you can see a crew car happily passing on the horizon 2. During the main battle of Grunwald scene (1410!) an electric watch can be seen on the actor's wrist as the Polish king zestfully waves his sword fighting his opponents.

KNIGHTS OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER, based on the novel by Nobel winner Henryk Sienkiewicz, is full of intensely melodramatic conflicts and nonstop action; Sienkiewicz's fiction was more in the mold of THE THREE MUSKETEERS and IVANHOE than WAR AND PEACE, and the source material makes for a highly entertaining movie. The epic scope is quite impressive (fully comparable to Hollywood epics of the same era, like QUO VADIS or SPARTACUS). The setting will be unfamiliar to many audiences (Poland and Prussia in the middle ages), but the plight of the Polish knight Jurand as he and his family are tormented by the dastardly Teutonic Knights is emotionally involving. I saw this in 2005 on a not-so-good video from Polart (washed-out color, poor subtitles), but I've recently seen a DVD on offer, which I hope will have higher quality; it's a handsomely made film that deserves restoration and a wider audience.

The movie is based on a Sienkiewicz's novel written in 1910 (500th anniversary of Tannenberg battle) and during the time of top German power in Europe. The content describes the life of medieval Polish gentry on the background of historical events (conflicts between the German Teutonic Orden and Kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania). Shows, how crude and cruel the life was that time. The movie has been made about 1960 on order of communist and para-nationalist propaganda to illustrate the role of alliance between Poles and "eastern nations" in stopping the German expansionism (a cold war ran that time, Poland had no diplomatic links with FR of Germany, which was putting Poland's western borders into questioning). The final Tannenberg battle scene is probably the best one battle movie in the history of cinematography. However, some propaganda accents have been put, i.e. German knights shooting "Heil!" at the beginning of the battle. The main tune of the film is to present Poles as a fit and sound nation.