The Vikings (film)

Plot

After King Edwin of Northumbria dies in a Viking raid led by Ragnar Lodbrok, his cousin Aella takes the throne because Edwin had no children. Edwin’s widow Enid is pregnant with Ragnar’s child. To keep the baby safe from Aella, she sends him to Italy, but Vikings intercept the ship and enslave the boy. He grows up as Eric. Lord Egbert, a Northumbrian noble who opposes Aella, learns Eric’s true parentage.

When Aella accuses Egbert of treason, Egbert flees to Ragnar in Norway. There, Egbert notices the pommel stone from the Northumbrian royal sword Requiter on an amulet around Eric’s neck—placed there by Enid—but keeps quiet. Eric later orders his falcon to attack Einar, his half-brother and Ragnar’s legitimate son, costing Einar an eye.

The court Völva Kitala, who loves Eric like a son, warns that Odin will curse anyone who kills him, sparing Eric from execution. Ragnar leaves him in a tidal pool to drown, but Eric calls to Odin, the wind shifts, and the water recedes. Egbert then claims Eric as his slave to protect him, hoping to use Eric’s unknown claim to Northumbria.

Both Eric and Einar fall for the Welsh Christian princess Morgana, who was meant to marry King Aella but gets captured in a raid. At a drunken feast, Ragnar tells Einar that women often need to be taken by force and grants Morgana to him. Einar throws her guards off the ship and begins to rape her; she offers no resistance. Eric appears, knocks Einar out, and escapes with Morgana on a small ship he built for Egbert.

Reception

The film was a hit in the US and overseas, earning $6.2 million in the US and Canada from an estimated gross of $15 million, and $7 million overseas. It was the third most popular film at the British box office in 1958. Kirk Douglas took no salary in return for 60% of the profits and was estimated to have earned $3 million.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the sight of Viking barges on slate gray seas in wide-screen and color but was disappointed that the film followed a commercial format without breaking new ground, calling it a copy of a Western with standard varmints in shaggy skins. Variety described it as spectacular, rousing and colorful, and praised Douglas's performance. Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times found the drama elementary and exaggerated, filled with pell-mell action, and thought the beatings, brutalities and beheadings made it too violent for children.

Leo Sullivan of The Washington Post called it lavishly produced and magnificently beautiful but said the simple storyline could not escape being a bore. John McCarten of The New Yorker called it terrible stuff but noted impressive views of the fiords. The Monthly Film Bulletin said that in its straightforward sentimental way, the film created a colorful fairy-tale world that was often entrancing, though it suffered from a rather wandering middle section.

Legacy

Mario Nascimbene's score was the first music published through Kirk Douglas' music publishing company, Peter Vincent Music Corporation, a subsidiary of Bryna Productions. The soundtrack LP was released by United Artists Records in a gatefold cover in early June 1958. The film is considered the trigger film for other contemporary Viking films, including Mario Bava's Erik the Conqueror and Jack Cardiff's The Long Ships. A Dell Four Color comic adaptation was published as issue #910 in June 1958.