The Long Ships (film)

The Long Ships is a 1964 British-Yugoslavian adventure film directed by Jack Cardiff and loosely based on the Swedish novel The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. It was intended to capitalise on the success of recent Viking and Moorish dramas such as The Vikings and El Cid, and was later followed by Alfred the Great. The film stars Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, and Russ Tamblyn.

Plot

The story centers on an immense golden bell named The Mother of Voices, which may or may not exist. Moorish king Aly Mansuh (Sidney Poitier) is convinced that it does. Having collected all the legendary material about it that he can, he plans to mount an expedition to search for it. When the shipwrecked Norseman, Rolfe (Richard Widmark), repeats the story of the bell in the marketplace, and hints that he knows its location, he is seized by Mansuh's men and brought in for questioning. Rolfe insists that he does not know and that the bell is only a myth. He manages to escape before the questioning continues under torture.

Managing to return home, Rolfe reveals to his father that he did indeed hear the bell pealing on the night his ship was wrecked in Africa. However, Rolfe's father has been made destitute after spending a fortune building a funeral ship for the Danish king, Harold Bluetooth, who then refuses to reimburse him citing an outstanding debt. Rationalizing that the ship does not yet belong to Harold (since he is still living), Rolfe and his brother steal not only the ship, but kidnap a number of inebriated Vikings to serve as her crew. In order to prevent Harold from killing his father in revenge for the theft, he also takes the king's daughter as a hostage. Harold declares that he will summon every longship he can find and rescue her. After prolonged difficulties at sea, the ship is damaged in a maelstrom. The Norse are cast ashore in Mansuh's country. Captured by the Moors, the Norse are condemned to execution but Mansuh's favorite wife Aminah convinces her husband to use them and their longship to retrieve the bell.

Arriving at the Pillars of Hercules, Rolfe and Mansuh find only a domed chapel with a small bronze bell where the Viking was certain he had heard The Mother of Voices. Frustrated, Rolfe throws the hanging bell against a wall and the resounding cacophany reveals that the chapel dome is the disguised Mother of Voices. After a costly misadventure moving the Mother of Voices from its clifftop down to the sea, the expedition finally returns to the Moorish city, Aly Mansuh triumphantly riding through the streets with the bell in tow. As the group reaches Mansuh's palace, Aminah sudenly cries aloud that "The Long Ships came in the night" and is immediately shot down by a spear. A group of Vikings come leaping out from behind the silent townspeople. These Norsemen are King Harold's men, out to rescue the princess, and the climactic battle ensues. It ends when the bell falls over and crushes Aly Mansuh. The Moors are defeated and the Vikings victorious. The film ends as Rolfe tells King Harold about the "three crowns of the Saxon kings,".

Trivia

• The relationship between Mansuh (Poitier) and his wife Aminah (Rosanna Schiaffino) is an early example of an interracial couple depicted on film.
• Maurice Binder filmed a pre-credit prologue resembling a mosaic explaining the background of the bell.
• The Viking village built for the film set was left standing and is a tourist attraction.

External links

• The Long Ships at the Internet Movie Database
• The Long Ships at AllRovi
• Cinema: A Thing of Booty, Time Magazine, June 12, 1964