This swords-and-sandals spectacle is definitely entertaining -- mostly for its raw, male-female interactions and Hollywood's over-the-top depiction of battle in the Middle Ages.
Victor Mature and Orson Welles make for diverting arch-foes, Mature a Viking inexplicably clad in hot pants and Welles in drapery-like garb enveloping an ample girth. A voluptuous presence in the mix is Liana Orfei as Viking mama Helga. It's a shocker to see how evil Tartar chief Burundai (Welles) treats her, with nary a care for the consequences. Her reunion with her beloved Oleg (Mature) could not be less predictable. She's tragic.
"Only don't anger the gods," she had warned her man. Yet she pays the price.
Guess life on the medieval steppe wasn't any more fair than today's existence...
Victor Mature and Orson Welles make for diverting arch-foes, Mature a Viking inexplicably clad in hot pants and Welles in drapery-like garb enveloping an ample girth. A voluptuous presence in the mix is Liana Orfei as Viking mama Helga. It's a shocker to see how evil Tartar chief Burundai (Welles) treats her, with nary a care for the consequences. Her reunion with her beloved Oleg (Mature) could not be less predictable. She's tragic.
"Only don't anger the gods," she had warned her man. Yet she pays the price.
Guess life on the medieval steppe wasn't any more fair than today's existence...