This film has a few bizarrely humorous scenes. When the vikings practice shooting paper-mache boulders with their catapults, their leader Victor Mature goes out to be the target, all with that great grin on his face! Welles as the Tartar prince makes goo-goo eyes at his Viking hostage with the plunging neckline, during a banquet which has for entertainment ballet dancers pretending to copulate in front of the dazed guests! Endless shots of armies on horseback riding by, with each shot lasting about twice as long as you'd expect! And then there's the scene where the vikings throw knives at the Romeo-and-Juliet couple in order to register their vote on the couple's fate! And the shots of Orson, huge as a house and shaped like a melon, walking up and down the corridors in his resplendent robes! And the battle scenes are great too, no one ever seems to get hurt! And the viking commandos slip into the river to cross; even though no one's around to see them, they go underwater for a remarkably long time! And then there's the ship which returns to harbor even though no one's got a pulse enough to steer! And then there's the giant sugar cubes being loaded into the catapult! ********SPOILER**** When a wounded Welles (actually a double) falls into the river, it's an absurd echo of "Touch of Evil". Pretty strange stuff.
Review of The Tartars
