In 1977, Harry Medved wrote an amazing book. First, he was only a teenager when it was published. Second, he helped to create the craze of enjoying bad films, as it was entitled "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time". Third, it came out just before videotapes--so he had to, in many cases, go archives and view a ton of bad films to ultimately come up with his list. Now I do not think every movie on it is that bad, but I do think it's incredibly good--and his book made very entertaining reading. In fact, it was so entertaining that I have made it my life's goal to see all 50 and "King Richard and the Crusaders" represents the 49th film!
To be among the last dozen or so that I've seen means that I have had to do a lot of digging myself to find these last elusive films. In the case of "King Richard", I had to get a Chinese DVD of the film, as Warner Brothers never released one in the US. The print is acceptable but what this really weird viewing were the DVD captions--which is often a problem with Chinese produced DVDs. However, "King Richard" is much worst than the usual terrible captioning by the Chinese. In practically every sentence, there are weird mistranslations that occur because they are either using a bad computer program or a badly educated Chinese person to do the captions. The examples of mistranslations abound but here are just a few:
ACTUAL CAPTIONS (actual word first, followed by captioned words): liege-league, fancied-offended, jester-just, debt-death, Christendom-crescent dumb, seldom educated-sodomy.
That last one IS a heck of a mistake! But, on the other hand, it sure made watching the film with captions a lot more exciting and unpredictable. Plus, on its own, "King Richard" is a pretty dull film.
Now not all the bad dialog is due to crappy captioning. On its own, the film was pretty wretched. I loved when King Richard's cousin (Virginia Mayo) kept calling him "Dick Plantagenet". I also liked when one of the characters talked about "...killing him dead". Is there any OTHER way to kill someone?! And, throughout the film, the love scenes were just laughably bad--about as romantic as a flea bath!
The film is supposedly about 'Good King Richard' during the Crusades. As a history teacher, the film made me cringe. It was accurate in a few ways but so much of it was just hooey. In particular, the Sir Walter Scott notion that King Richard I (also called "The Lionhearted") was a good and just man. In reality, he was one of the most vicious and cruel kings in English history--more interested in splitting open heads in battle than ruling his domains in England and western France. In fact, he practically never spent any time in England. Much of the time, he was out hanging with his male friends and slaughtering entire cities--even ones that surrendered to him! By any standard he was a blood-thirsty maniac--except, of course, Sir Walter Scott's! In this film, I laughed out loud when Richard was angry at a knight who "unjustly persecuted and killed unarmed Muslims". This was Richard's personal hobby in real life! Raping, pillaging and murdering all in the name of God--that was our beloved Richard!
Even if you accepted the film's premise that Richard was a swell guy, I still thought his casting was very odd. The very erudite actor, George Sanders, played 'Dick Plantagenet' but was simply too fat and old and the thought of him being unequaled in battle seemed ludicrous--unless it's a fight to get the last sandwich at a buffet! Now I should talk--I'm not exactly svelte myself--but at least I am not playing a macho warrior.
The story is a whole lot of nonsense about a conspiracy within Richard's ranks to kill him and wrest control of the crusade by some fictional knight. And, oddly, he was saved by a Scotsman and, of all people, Saladin--the Muslim leader himself! And, in the process, there were lots of love scenes involving Mayo and the Scot (Laurence Harvey) and Saladin (Rex Harrison)--none of which seemed to make any sense. Mostly it just seemed like a dull and clichéd plot that paled compared to GOOD costume dramas. In fact, aside from the horrid dialog, I think this was the worst thing about the film--even worse than its inaccuracy.
So the bottom line is this--is "King Richard and the Crusaders" bad enough to be on a worst film list? Probably not. It's bad, but I have seen a few costumers that were worse...but not many! The only good thing I could see in the film (other than nice costumes) was Rex Harrison. Despite wearing dark paint and a goatee, he actually came off much better than the Christians in the film--who were all dreadfully stuffy and awkward.
You could do a lot better, but it is good for a few laughs--particularly if you can activate the English captions.
To be among the last dozen or so that I've seen means that I have had to do a lot of digging myself to find these last elusive films. In the case of "King Richard", I had to get a Chinese DVD of the film, as Warner Brothers never released one in the US. The print is acceptable but what this really weird viewing were the DVD captions--which is often a problem with Chinese produced DVDs. However, "King Richard" is much worst than the usual terrible captioning by the Chinese. In practically every sentence, there are weird mistranslations that occur because they are either using a bad computer program or a badly educated Chinese person to do the captions. The examples of mistranslations abound but here are just a few:
ACTUAL CAPTIONS (actual word first, followed by captioned words): liege-league, fancied-offended, jester-just, debt-death, Christendom-crescent dumb, seldom educated-sodomy.
That last one IS a heck of a mistake! But, on the other hand, it sure made watching the film with captions a lot more exciting and unpredictable. Plus, on its own, "King Richard" is a pretty dull film.
Now not all the bad dialog is due to crappy captioning. On its own, the film was pretty wretched. I loved when King Richard's cousin (Virginia Mayo) kept calling him "Dick Plantagenet". I also liked when one of the characters talked about "...killing him dead". Is there any OTHER way to kill someone?! And, throughout the film, the love scenes were just laughably bad--about as romantic as a flea bath!
The film is supposedly about 'Good King Richard' during the Crusades. As a history teacher, the film made me cringe. It was accurate in a few ways but so much of it was just hooey. In particular, the Sir Walter Scott notion that King Richard I (also called "The Lionhearted") was a good and just man. In reality, he was one of the most vicious and cruel kings in English history--more interested in splitting open heads in battle than ruling his domains in England and western France. In fact, he practically never spent any time in England. Much of the time, he was out hanging with his male friends and slaughtering entire cities--even ones that surrendered to him! By any standard he was a blood-thirsty maniac--except, of course, Sir Walter Scott's! In this film, I laughed out loud when Richard was angry at a knight who "unjustly persecuted and killed unarmed Muslims". This was Richard's personal hobby in real life! Raping, pillaging and murdering all in the name of God--that was our beloved Richard!
Even if you accepted the film's premise that Richard was a swell guy, I still thought his casting was very odd. The very erudite actor, George Sanders, played 'Dick Plantagenet' but was simply too fat and old and the thought of him being unequaled in battle seemed ludicrous--unless it's a fight to get the last sandwich at a buffet! Now I should talk--I'm not exactly svelte myself--but at least I am not playing a macho warrior.
The story is a whole lot of nonsense about a conspiracy within Richard's ranks to kill him and wrest control of the crusade by some fictional knight. And, oddly, he was saved by a Scotsman and, of all people, Saladin--the Muslim leader himself! And, in the process, there were lots of love scenes involving Mayo and the Scot (Laurence Harvey) and Saladin (Rex Harrison)--none of which seemed to make any sense. Mostly it just seemed like a dull and clichéd plot that paled compared to GOOD costume dramas. In fact, aside from the horrid dialog, I think this was the worst thing about the film--even worse than its inaccuracy.
So the bottom line is this--is "King Richard and the Crusaders" bad enough to be on a worst film list? Probably not. It's bad, but I have seen a few costumers that were worse...but not many! The only good thing I could see in the film (other than nice costumes) was Rex Harrison. Despite wearing dark paint and a goatee, he actually came off much better than the Christians in the film--who were all dreadfully stuffy and awkward.
You could do a lot better, but it is good for a few laughs--particularly if you can activate the English captions.