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The War Lord
A knight in the service of a duke goes to a coastal village where an earlier attempt to build a defensive castle has failed. He begins to rebuild the duke's authority in the face of the barbarians at the border and is making progress until he falls in love with one of the local women.
Release : | 1965 |
Rating : | 6.6 |
Studio : | Universal Pictures, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Art Direction, |
Cast : | Charlton Heston Richard Boone Rosemary Forsyth Maurice Evans Guy Stockwell |
Genre : | Drama History War |
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Memorable, crazy movie
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Guy Stockwell nailed the Norman knight characterization, and should have won nominations for it. Eleventh-century knighthood was not of the 'shining armor' sort. They were extra sons, trained for war but with plenty to do between battles. Basically, they were aristocratic bikers, arrogant and exceptional, often despoiling the countryside. Draco as an 'I want it now' bully perfectly captures this mentality. His character reflects that of an actual younger brother who really screwed up things. In 1066 Tosti Godwinson convinced the King of Norway, a 7' Viking, to attack England. He did and lost to King Harold, but Harold then lost to the Normans exemplified by Draco far more than Crysagon.
I am a movie buff since my childhood and I have seen tons of films, of all kinds, although I avoid certain comedies...But besides that I am rather "open" to many kinds. So this feature is for me the best medieval films ever made, all countries confounded. I don't think that Russia for instance has made a medieval movie better than this one. And the British, french and other American films are not at the same scale as this one.Schaffner, Heston, Boone all are here at their best. Even score, sets, everything is here brilliant, awesome, poignant, terrific at the most. You have here a flawless movie that grabs you from the beginning to the end. And the peasant's character, whose the Young beautiful bride is stolen by the war lord - Heston- because the lord's right to take the bride on her wedding night, this character shown as the "evil" guy of the film is unforgettable. I LOVE ambivalent characters, for whom you hesitate between admiration or empathy and disgust. Like the Heston's character is. Unfortunately all audiences are not as sensitive as me concerning places the connections between characters. They like foreseeable schemes, the evil guy here and the good dude here...If you put these scheme out of the way, the audiences are lost. Those pricks....If you have not seen this film yet, you are Lucky, because discovering such a jewel will certainly be the best thing that could happen in your movie buff life.
I am a medieval historian and for my money this is one of the best films about the period, maybe the best. The background research was far superior to that done for the much better known El Cid, and the script is intelligent and carries you along with it. This film really captures the flavour of life in the north-west coastal regions of Flanders in the mid- eleventh century. The tower in particular is thoroughly authentic as is the emphasis on hunting. Terrific stuff. As for the battle scenes, if there are better medieval ones I'd like to hear about them. The Frisians are nothing if not persistent ... Unfortunately the impressive input by design, costumes and cinematography is let down by the wooden acting of Rosemary Forsythe, which rivals that of Sophia Loren in El Cid for sheer blandness. But that's the 60s for you. If only we could take the feisty and charismatic acting of today's actresses and combine it with the realism of the best of post- war Hollywood, before post-modern tongue-in-cheek humour and cgi effects took over. This movie is far from perfect but it is eminently watchable.
This is one - perhaps the only one - of old Sequoia Charlton Heston's best films. As an actor Heston is so wooden he makes Laurence Harvey look like a Mexican jumping bean yet here he is surrounded by a photogenic landscape and a cast and crew who exploit it to the full. It's a neat reverse take on the bog-standard 'epic' in which high-tech battles are everything and any 'love interest' is shoehorned into the background and given just enough screen time to justify the macho lads taking their wives and/or girl friends along; here we have a love story filling the frame so much so that we resent the skirmishes and full-scale battles that distract us from the star-crossed lovers who represent an unlikely pairing, a lowly peasant girl, who in reality would have been illiterate yet here is strangely eloquent, and the high-born nobleman as portrayed by Mr. Mahogany. It stands up well. Catch it if you can.