The Crusades (1935 film)

The Crusades
VHS cover for The Crusades
Directed by	Cecil B. DeMille
Produced by	Cecil B. DeMille Henry Herzbrun (executive producer)
Written by	Harold Lamb Waldemar Young Dudley Nichols
Starring	Loretta Young Henry Wilcoxon Ian Keith C. Aubrey Smith Katherine DeMille Joseph Schildkraut Alan Hale C. Henry Gordon George Barbier Montagu Love Ramsay Hill Lumsden Hare Maurice Murphy William Farnum Hobart Bosworth Pedro de Córdoba Mischa Auer Albert Conti Sven Hugo Borg Paul Sotoff Fred Malatesta Hans von Twardowski Anna Demetrio Perry Askam Vallejo Gantner
Cinematography	Victor Milner
Edited by	Anne Bauchens
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (original) Universal Studios (current)
Release date	August 21, 1935
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,376,260
Box office	$1.7 million

The Crusades is a 1935 American historical adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and originally released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Loretta Young as Berengaria of Navarre and Henry Wilcoxon as Richard I of England. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Victor Milner) as well as for Best Foreign Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1935.

The film takes many of its elements and main characters from the Third Crusade, which was prompted by the Saracen capture of Jerusalem and the crusader states in the Holy Land in A.D. 1187. The character of King Richard the Lionheart is established early as a man of action but little thought. A hermit arrives preaching a great Crusade to bring Jerusalem back into Christian hands. Richard enlists in order, cynically, to get out of an arranged betrothal to Princess Alice of France. A plot is laid against Richard's life by his brother Prince John and Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat. En route to the war, Richard meets Berengaria, Princess of Navarre and—again cynically—marries her in exchange for food for his men. Berengaria accompanies Richard to the Holy Land.