King Richard and the Crusaders (1954)

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Colourful costumes, battle scenes, chivalry and betrayal yet King Richard and the Crusaders is a dud of nonsense proportions.Based on Walter Scott's, The Talisman and little credence given to historical accuracy, King Richard (George Sanders) and his pan European allies are in the midst of treachery as some of the knights and barons plan to kill him. Only Sir Kenneth (Lawrence Harvey) a Scot and therefore untrusted senses danger and is loyal to Richard.Sir Kenneth has other motives as he is in love with Lady Edith (Virginia Mayo) who is Richard's cousin.Rex Harrison is the Saracen ruler Saladin who enters the camp in disguise and also falls for Lady Edith. Saladin is shown to be wise and noble even healing King Richard at one point whereas King Richard is surrounded by treachery and petty rules which leads him to banish his most trusted knight at one point.The film is too long, too padded and even confusing. The setting looks to much like California than the desert of the Middle East. The intrigue is laughable as Richard is not astute enough to have spies in his camp to search out any counter plots, but the nasty noblemen can figure out Richard's plans by standing outside his tent and listening in to his conversations.Saladin although appearing to be decent and intelligent with good command of English, his Arabic consists of mangled Muslim prayers. Imagine an Arabic film that had an English character and every time he spoke English, it consisted nothing but portion of the Lord's prayers!You have scenes such as jousting where they spend too long on the fanfare and the setting up rather than the actual jousting. You have Sir Kenneth getting shot by an arrow and yet he miraculously recovers and in any mass use of Bows and Arrows, no horses ever gets hit. Its a daft film but it is not gloriously daft. At least Harrison, Mayo, Sanders and Harvey try hard and take it all seriously.

KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS is a Warner Bros. attempt to get folks away from their TV sets during the '50s and watch a spectacular adventure film in CinemaScope and Warner Color. Based on a story "The Talisman" by Sir Walter Scott (of "Ivanhoe" fame), it contains a lot of absurdly anachronistic dialogue ("Go squat on the Alps!"), and plot- heavy nonsense that gets more and more entangled as the film plods toward another saber-rattling conclusion.REX HARRISON seems to be having a fine time as a turbaned Mideasterner (Saladin) under heavy dark make-up in a rather physically demanding role not characteristic of most of his work. And LAWRENCE HARVEY is more animated than usual in a cardboard assignment, in love with VIRGINIA MAYO who has little to do but look decorative in her colorful costumes.The big mystery is why David Butler (who specialized in comedies and musicals) was chosen to do the sort of directorial chores that should have gone to Michael Curtiz. One can only yearn for a better film when listening to Max Steiner's well orchestrated background score, but even his music fails to save an inept script from seeming even the least bit credible. Most of the dialogue is unbelievably bad in a screenplay by John Twist.No wonder this was a box office dud, in no way reaping the sort of rewards Warner Bros. hoped for or the sort of success that MGM had with "Ivanhoe" and "Knights of the Roundtable."Summing up: At your own risk.

Based on Sir Walter Scott's "The Talisman" (which I own in a comic-strip version!), this was made in the wake of IVANHOE (1952) – adapted from another classic by the same author; however, given that that film was made by journeyman Richard Thorpe (followed, with leading man Robert Taylor in tow, by two other popular MGM adventures – KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE [1953] and QUENTIN DURWARD [1955]), Warners somewhat incongruously assigned musical comedy expert Butler to this one! While clearly inferior to those three films, KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS isn't nearly as bad as its reputation would suggest (though it must be said that most spectacles from this era, disregarded by the majority of critics when new, stand up surprisingly well today as entertainment!). Even so, there's some definite campiness to the film – notably when Rex Harrison as Saladin lullabies George Sanders, playing the wounded King Richard (the score by reliable Max Steiner being noteworthy apart from this)…and, in any case, the whole emerges to be even more fanciful than Cecil B. De Mille's THE CRUSADES (1935; which preceded this viewing), what with the Muslim leader insinuating himself into the enemy camp, providing a cure for the King, and even aiding him in routing the traitors (genre staple Robert Douglas and Michael Pate) among his own ranks!! One similarity to the earlier epic is the fact that Saladin falls for a Christian woman – though, in this case, it's Richard's cousin (Virginia Mayo) as opposed to his wife (who gets very limited screen time here) – but ultimately relinquishes the heroine to her lover (a fiery Scots knight played by a young, blonde yet surprisingly effective Laurence Harvey). Incidentally, Sanders – while older than Henry Wilcoxon's incarnation of Richard in THE CRUSADES – is no less gruff and headstrong and, in fact, spends more time fighting Harvey (including a jousting duel) than Harrison!!

The main reason to indulge in KING RICHARD FOR THE CRUSADERS isn't the very cheap interiors reproduced in the wonderment of CinemaScope; it isn't the sleepy performance of mutton-chasing George Sanders; it isn't the cross-eyed heart-pounding (literally!) histrionics of Virginia Mayo; and it isn't even the surprisingly unsteady surliness of Robert Douglas (usually sharp as a rapier). Nope. Tune in to KING RICHARD for one of Max Steiner's grandest adventure scores. It's truly a thrilling work, with lovely melodies and rugged action set-pieces. But as good old Max said many times, "good music can help a picture but it can never save it." David Butler was a terrific director whose musicals and comedies have real spark and often puckish whimsy. Why he was handed this piece of cheese is a mystery. At least journeyman Curtiz could have made something worthwhile out of it. Oh well, it's still a great film to listen to.