Richard Coeur de Lion

Saw it on its second release in 1962. I liked it then and recalling several scenes, I still like it. First, I fancied Sir Kenneth's very unusual armour which was a deep copper color. I had seen silver and gold finish armor in movies, even shiny black but this was the first time I saw copper colored armour. But wait, in Samson and Delilah (with Victor Mature) the shields and breastplates of the Philistines were made of copper.

Memorable is the scene when Sir Kenneth introduces himself to King Richard (portrayed by George Sanders) in Gaellic. Although used to foreign knights as the Crusades were after all a multinational mission of Christian kingdoms, the King nevertheless was surprised that he couldn't discern the language spoken by Sir Kenneth. When the latter informs him that it was Gaellic, George Sanders' blue eyes flashed and he said: "One of the Scotsmen! I swear as soon as this crusade is over and the Saracens are defeated, I will bathe their miserable country in their blood." Or something to that effect. Remember in the 11th century,England and Scotland were rivals in power and were constantly at war over borders with England always trying to subjugate the Scots.

I always enjoy listening to George Sanders' rich voice and very cultured but manly intonation which can sometimes be reassuring but at times menacing. His voice over of Bagheera the tiger in Disney's The Jungle Book with its range of moods is superb.

The battle and dueling scenes were very good.

Somehow King Richard And The Crusaders made the Medved list of the 50 Worst films of all time. I'm not saying it's Citizen Kane, but I've seen far worse. And until The Lion In Winter and Robin and Marian, we have never been given a true picture of King Richard I of England.

George Sanders who also in his career played King Charles II, a monarch of a far different temperament than Richard is in the title role. The film is based on the Sir Walter Scott novel, The Talisman and takes place in the Middle East during the Crusades.

As in the DeMille epic The Crusades which this bear a faint resemblance, The Lion Hearted King is beset with lots of problems, not all of them caused by the Syrian warrior King Saladin whom he faces in the field. Duke Leopold of Austria and Philip Augustus of France question his leadership of all the Christian nations, his brother Prince John is looking to seize his throne back home and right in camp, he's got a couple of fifth columnists in Robert Douglas and Michael Pate.

Pate and Douglas put in action an assassination attempt in which Richard is only wounded by a captured Saracen arrow. Richard's loyal retainer a Scot knight played by Laurence Harvey starts hunting up the assassins. But in the mean time, a truce of sorts is called as Saladin, hearing of Richard's attempt sends his personal physician played by Rex Harrison.

There is a romantic subplot going here with Harvey and a cousin of Richard's played by Virginia Mayo. Richard likes Harvey enough, but not to marry into the royal family, especially when as a royal princess, Mayo can be married off for alliance purposes.

Sir Walter Scott was one of those authors in the 19th century who cleaned up the Middle Ages quite a bit and invested those bloody times with a romantic aura. He was never more effective in doing this than in his more well known work Ivanhoe. In fact Ivanhoe is almost a sequel of this film as it deals with the capture of Richard by Duke Leopold on the way back to England after the action in this film is concluded and the ransom for Richard demanded and paid.

George Sanders and Robert Douglas were both in the screen version of Ivanhoe that MGM did two years before Warner Brothers did this film. Ivanhoe is a much better film, yet King Richard And The Crusaders does hold its own.

When the Medveds wrote that 50 worst film book they cited a line that Virginia Mayo says which is "war, war that's all you ever think about Dick Plantagenet". In point of fact that was the thing uppermost in that very bloodthirsty man's mind. More truth than humor there.

And you won't get much truth from King Richard And The Crusaders. Still it's not as bad a film as the Medveds would have you believe.

Based on Sir Walter Scott's "The Talisman" (which I own in a comic-strip version!), this was made in the wake of IVANHOE (1952) – adapted from another classic by the same author; however, given that that film was made by journeyman Richard Thorpe (followed, with leading man Robert Taylor in tow, by two other popular MGM adventures – KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE [1953] and QUENTIN DURWARD [1955]), Warners somewhat incongruously assigned musical comedy expert Butler to this one!

While clearly inferior to those three films, KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS isn't nearly as bad as its reputation would suggest (though it must be said that most spectacles from this era, disregarded by the majority of critics when new, stand up surprisingly well today as entertainment!). Even so, there's some definite campiness to the film – notably when Rex Harrison as Saladin lullabies George Sanders, playing the wounded King Richard (the score by reliable Max Steiner being noteworthy apart from this)…and, in any case, the whole emerges to be even more fanciful than Cecil B. De Mille's THE CRUSADES (1935; which preceded this viewing), what with the Muslim leader insinuating himself into the enemy camp, providing a cure for the King, and even aiding him in routing the traitors (genre staple Robert Douglas and Michael Pate) among his own ranks!!

One similarity to the earlier epic is the fact that Saladin falls for a Christian woman – though, in this case, it's Richard's cousin (Virginia Mayo) as opposed to his wife (who gets very limited screen time here) – but ultimately relinquishes the heroine to her lover (a fiery Scots knight played by a young, blonde yet surprisingly effective Laurence Harvey). Incidentally, Sanders – while older than Henry Wilcoxon's incarnation of Richard in THE CRUSADES – is no less gruff and headstrong and, in fact, spends more time fighting Harvey (including a jousting duel) than Harrison!!

I give it a NINE as a 12-year-old. As a mature person, I can't say because it's not available, even on Netflix. At the time, I thought it a great adventure film. So they scrambled history a bit and the lines were corny; but with costumes, intrigue, and romance, plus Rex Harrison and the always impeccable George Sanders, what more could a kid want?

Especially loved the part "where King Richard meets Saladin and shows him 'the strength of English steel' by cutting through an iron mace placed across the backs of two chairs. Saladin responds in kind by throwing a silk veil in the air which separates as it falls across his scimitar, and he replies that 'sometimes it is not the strength of the steel but the sharpness of the blade.'"

Didn't you ever like some film as a kid for reasons known only to a 12-year-old?

KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS is a Warner Bros. attempt to get folks away from their TV sets during the '50s and watch a spectacular adventure film in CinemaScope and Warner Color. Based on a story "The Talisman" by Sir Walter Scott (of "Ivanhoe" fame), it contains a lot of absurdly anachronistic dialogue ("Go squat on the Alps!"), and plot- heavy nonsense that gets more and more entangled as the film plods toward another saber-rattling conclusion.

REX HARRISON seems to be having a fine time as a turbaned Mideasterner (Saladin) under heavy dark make-up in a rather physically demanding role not characteristic of most of his work. And LAWRENCE HARVEY is more animated than usual in a cardboard assignment, in love with VIRGINIA MAYO who has little to do but look decorative in her colorful costumes.

The big mystery is why David Butler (who specialized in comedies and musicals) was chosen to do the sort of directorial chores that should have gone to Michael Curtiz. One can only yearn for a better film when listening to Max Steiner's well orchestrated background score, but even his music fails to save an inept script from seeming even the least bit credible. Most of the dialogue is unbelievably bad in a screenplay by John Twist.

No wonder this was a box office dud, in no way reaping the sort of rewards Warner Bros. hoped for or the sort of success that MGM had with "Ivanhoe" and "Knights of the Roundtable."

Summing up: At your own risk.