Os Bravos Tártaros

The tartars casts some of the same characters as "The Conqueror" which starred John Wayne and Susan Heyward and is widely known as one of the worst big-budget Hollywood movies ever made. It is so bad it is usually seen as a comedy due to awful scripting and acting.

The Tartars takes Wayne's character 30-40 years into the future in the shape of Orson Welles. Welles here attacks Victor Mature, miscast as a Viking (?), and murders his wife. Terrible vengeance is the theme of this laughable epic. It is hard to tell whether the worst thing about this movie is the acting, the script, or the costumes featuring all the men in mini-skirts.

Turner movies has both epics in the library and should combine them on any weekend billed as 'The worst historical double feature of all time'.

In the 1950s and 60s, Italian filmmakers realized that if they cast American actors in the leads in their films, they'd be more marketable worldwide. As a result, many B-list actors or A-listers in their waning years went there to make films. To do this, they needed to dub the actors in various languages...which is what they did with "The Tartars" ("I tartari"). Like most of the Italian epics of the era, it looks a lot like a Hercules/Maciste film...with large casts, nice costumes and adequeate acting.

In the case of "The Tartars", two Americans lead the cast...Victor Mature plays the leader of the Russian Vikings* and Orson Wells plays the leader of the local Tartars. Of the two, Wells looks the silliest...and SHOULD look like a Mongolian, but doesn't.

The film involves a war between the Tartars and Vikings...and various women are taken prisoner in order to try to convince the other side to capitulate. Of couse, this doesn't work so they spend much of the movie splitting each others' head open and acting macho.

This film turned out to be pretty much what I expected...a lovely looking story but also a relatively dull one. Why? Because the acting seems so incredibly muted and none of the main characters seem to act like real people...more like statues that somehow talk. This makes it all seem quite sterile...and dull. For a MUCH better and more interesting film, try Hollywood's "The Vikings" (1958)...a film that is better in pretty much every way.

*While most folks think the Vikings were only from Scandinavia, some migrated to Russia and instead of sacking the land, stayed and became farmers and traders. Many Russians today can trace their ancestry to these people.

On the great plains of Russia a thousand years ago, many tribes converge. From the North, the peaceful and honorable Vikings are led by Oleg the Brave (Victor Mature). From the East, the barbaric Tartars are led by the local khan Togrul. He tries to recruit Oleg to join in attacking the Slavs but Oleg refuses due to their hundred years of friendship. Togrul starts a fight and gets killed. The Vikings kidnap Togrul's daughter Samia and escape. Togrul's brother Burundai (Orson Welles) vows revenge.

This comes from another era in Hollywood and the world. The yellow-faced Orson was ignored at the time but it has not aged well in the present day. One thing that wasn't ignored is the Italian-American Mature trying to play a Viking. He sticks out like a sore thumb. Neither him nor Orson fit their roles in the modern sense. If one can ignore that, this is generally a functional B-movie with a lot of westernized history and a Hollywood version of the exotic East. As part of the plot, I would expect Oleg to sent emissaries to the Slavs right away. The movie opens with many tribes and it quickly dwindles down to the two sides. As for the acting, it is old-time Hollywood melodrama and Orson seems to be gleefully playing the villain. All in all, it is a swords and sandals adventure that hasn't aged well.

Victor Mature and Orson Welles head a continental cast in I Tartari, a badly dubbed Italian film about the Vikings and the Tartars set somewhere in the steppes of Eastern Europe. Both of these American film icons had nothing better to do. Welles just needed the money for his own projects and Mature after the studio system was shutting down was putting his career into half speed as he concentrated on golf more than films.

Like the cowboys and the farmers in Oklahoma, the Tartars and Vikings just feud because its natural both being imperialist sorts. The Tartars are moving west and would eventually reach the Balkans. The Vikings expanded in every direction including voyages southward down river routes into what is now Byelorussia and the Ukraine.

The Tartars make an offer the Vikings under Mature can and do refuse. The Tartars want to have a military alliance and attack the native Slavs, but Mature who has married into the Slavs refuses and negotiations break down. The Tartar chief is killed and his daughter is carried off by the Vikings and Mature's brother has a yen for her and they get to kanoodling.

Orson Welles who is the brother of the slain chief takes over and his troops capture Mature's wife. He's willing to exchange Mature's wife for his niece, but not after a little forced kanoodling of his own, brought on as Welles and the wife are being entertained by some sexy oriental strip dancing and Orson's hormones get the better of him.

I won't go any farther in describing this disaster of an Italian spectacle film just to say it all ends rather badly for just about everyone in the film. There were spots in the film where Mature's English was dubbed and I can't see why other than Mature could not summon up enough conviction to give a passable interpretation of a performance. Given the material I can't blame him. Even Welles, professional that he is, looks positively bored even when getting ready to rape Mature's wife. Victor Mature would be off the screen for five years before appearing in Peter Sellers's After The Fox in a good natured satire of an actor very much like himself.

Vic and Orson really hit the bottom doing this one.

This is no boring picture but it is far away from well entertainment too. The story is too simple. Most of the actors are not very convincing (especially too old and too dark "Viking" Victor Mature and an uninspired Luciano Marin). There remains an interesting Orson Welles as "Tartarian" Burundai and the experienced directing by Richard Thorpe (director of legendary historical epics like "Ivanhoe"). Good work is also done by the Italian cast members who composed the music, took the location shots and designed the costumes. To sum it up an average movie.