The Vikings (film)
| The Vikings | |
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| 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 |
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Release date
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Running time
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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 historical fiction swashbuckling 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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Wikipedia