The fifties was Hollywood's decade of change... With television's continuing stronghold on the public, the film industry had to rethink itself into competing against the monster box and, in so doing, underwent a radical personality change...
Clearly, the only way to lure audiences back into the cinema was to provide them with something that was unavailable on television. The alternatives soon became apparent: new projection ratios that could in no way be matched by the small screen, epics whose production costs were beyond the reach of TV...
"King Richard and the Crusaders" begins with Richard the Lionhearted (George Sanders) and his allies having hardly set foot in the Holy Land on the Third Crusade when a group of treacherous nobles plans to kill Richard and take command of the whole operation...
Sir Kenneth (Lawrence Harvey) makes his appearance as a noble Scotsman, the only knight who is truly loyal to Richard... He warns the king about the traitors in his midst, and rides off to find evidence against them...
Virginia Mayo is Richard's cousin, Lady Edith, who is hopelessly in love with Sir Kenneth, but she can't marry him until he proves himself...
Rex Harrison plays the role of the Saracen ruler Saladin, who falls in love with Lady Edith... The motion picture makes it clear that it is Saladin, not Richard, who is the nobler and wiser chieftain through a series of intrigues which show the great Sultan playing physician, matchmaker and spy all the while Richard is being cheated by traitors and self-interested allies around him... In fact, the tricked king is moved to condemn to death his bravest knight and supporter...
Robert Douglas is Sir Giles Amaury, the treacherous knight who sneaks up to Richard's tent one night with a hired bowman... "Strike deep!" he urged, "this is no ordinary man!"
Very loosely based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, David Butler's "King Richard and the Crusaders" is a fun film, full of adventure and exotic locales, but absolutely far from Richard Thorpe's "Ivanhoe," poor in colorful characters and chivalry...
Clearly, the only way to lure audiences back into the cinema was to provide them with something that was unavailable on television. The alternatives soon became apparent: new projection ratios that could in no way be matched by the small screen, epics whose production costs were beyond the reach of TV...
"King Richard and the Crusaders" begins with Richard the Lionhearted (George Sanders) and his allies having hardly set foot in the Holy Land on the Third Crusade when a group of treacherous nobles plans to kill Richard and take command of the whole operation...
Sir Kenneth (Lawrence Harvey) makes his appearance as a noble Scotsman, the only knight who is truly loyal to Richard... He warns the king about the traitors in his midst, and rides off to find evidence against them...
Virginia Mayo is Richard's cousin, Lady Edith, who is hopelessly in love with Sir Kenneth, but she can't marry him until he proves himself...
Rex Harrison plays the role of the Saracen ruler Saladin, who falls in love with Lady Edith... The motion picture makes it clear that it is Saladin, not Richard, who is the nobler and wiser chieftain through a series of intrigues which show the great Sultan playing physician, matchmaker and spy all the while Richard is being cheated by traitors and self-interested allies around him... In fact, the tricked king is moved to condemn to death his bravest knight and supporter...
Robert Douglas is Sir Giles Amaury, the treacherous knight who sneaks up to Richard's tent one night with a hired bowman... "Strike deep!" he urged, "this is no ordinary man!"
Very loosely based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, David Butler's "King Richard and the Crusaders" is a fun film, full of adventure and exotic locales, but absolutely far from Richard Thorpe's "Ivanhoe," poor in colorful characters and chivalry...