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Ahead of Leone on Kurosawa (Fistful of Dollars), Mario Bava on Fleischer. Norsemen in eighth-century Britain, "blond giants thirsty for blood" yet the opening details civilization's treacherous massacre of a pagan settlement, behind it is the nobleman with eyes on the throne (Andrea Checchi). (The fiery mayhem is crisply punctuated by the skewering of a villager with an infant in her arms.) The Nordic chief's sons are separated, one (George Ardisson) is adopted by the British Queen (Françoise Christophe) while the other (Cameron Mitchell) grows to lead the invasion of the isle. "No pact with those barbarians, only war." The Bava intoxication in spades, the camera ascends past green-hued skulls to a couple bound with barbed wire for a high-angled view of dancers fanning out in a torch-lit cave, DeMille redivivus in lurid Technicolor. ("Love is not guilt," it is argued in defense of the adulterous pair on trial, the word of the ruler prevails nonetheless, "away to the vultures.") Twin maidens (Alice and Ellen Kessler) with matching tunics and swords at opposite sides of the widescreen, a duel with blades still glowing from the molten forging. Fraternal fractures and reunions, "it's fate. All our moves are predestined." A grimacing serpent's head announces the Viking ship materializing out of blueish mist, the sun filtered through a wooden tower looks down on silhouetted figures wielding axes. Géricault skies on the shore, tilted trumpets on battlements out of Welles' Othello, clashing masses "gleaming in purple and gold" as Byron would have it. Fatally wounded, the conqueror turns philosophical: "A beautiful dream. It couldn't come true. The gods were jealous." A resplendent dreamscape gladly absorbed by Boorman's Excalibur. With Franco Ressel, Folco Lulli, Jean-Jacques Delbo, Raf Baldassarre, Gianni Solaro, and Franco Giacobini.
--- Fernando F. Croce |