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The Vikings (1958 film)

The Vikings
Vikings moviep.jpg
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Produced by Jerry Bresler
Written by Calder Willingham (screenplay)
Dale Wasserman (adaptation)
Based on The Viking
by Edison Marshall
Starring Kirk Douglas
Tony Curtis
Janet Leigh
Ernest Borgnine
James Donald
Alexander Knox
Frank Thring
Narrated by Orson Welles
Music by Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography Jack Cardiff
Edited by Elmo Williams
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • June 28, 1958 (1958-06-28)
Running time
116 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3.5 million
Box office $7.6 million (est. US/ Canada rentals)

The Vikings is a 1958 adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and filmed in Technicolor. It was produced by and stars Kirk Douglas. It is based on the novel The Viking by Edison Marshall, which in turn is based on material from the sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons. Other starring roles were taken by Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Ernest Borgnine. The film made notable use of natural locations in Norway. It was mostly filmed in Maurangerfjorden and Maurangsnes, captured on film by cinematographer Jack Cardiff although Aella's castle was the real Fort de la Latte in north-east Brittany in France and also on the location of the Lim Bay (Fiord) in Croatia.

Despite being derisively called a "Norse Opera" by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther, the film proved a major box office success and spawned the television series Tales of the Vikings, directed by the film's editor, Elmo Williams, which included none of the original cast or characters.

The King of Northumbria is killed during a Viking raid led by the fearsome Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine). Because the king had died childless, his cousin Aella (Frank Thring) takes the throne. The king's widow, however, is pregnant with what she knows is Ragnar's child because he had raped her during that fateful raid, and to protect the infant from her cousin-in-law's ambitions, she sends him off to Italy. By a twist of fate, the ship is intercepted by the Vikings, who are unaware of the child's kinship, and enslave him.


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