Skip to main content

The Crusades (1935)

The Crusades. Feature film. (1935, 125 mins) IMDB

...a Hollywood romance with swords thrown in...

T

he title is extremely misleading. The film is not about the crusades but a love story set in the midst of a crusade led by King Richard.

Richard never spoke English and barely even lived on the British isles. He was a Norman who spoke French, but you wouldn't know that from this film.

The filmmakers also want you to believe the King would have been caught up in something as trivial as love. Not a chance. Marriage wasn't about love. It was about matters of state, about power, and with that power, wealth.

A true-to-history film about King Richard and the Crusades would lack romance and therefore wouldn't appeal to a broad audience.

What we have in this film is nothing more than a love story. Richard is betrothed to Alice, the sister of King Philip of France. He doesn't want to marry her. He decides to go on the crusade because there's a chance he'll die and therefore not have to marry Alice.

In Marseille, he negotiates with a local King for food. Richard will marry the king's daughter in exchange for cattle and grain. Richard doesn't attend the wedding--he sends his sword instead. The oddest wedding ceremony I've ever seen. His wife to be is the gorgeous Loretta Young. She despises his boorish behaviour. He can't even bother to meet her, but when he does meet her, it's love at first sight.

Once in the Holy Lands, the battles against the Arabs begin, but oddly we don't see very much of it. The camera is held in close, never back to give a wide shot. I can guess at the reason--money. To film it otherwise would have cost a great deal more. As a result, the film doesn't have the feel we're used to when battles are shown. DeMille would make up for it in his later films.

THE CRUSADES is not a great film. It's mildly interesting with a completely absurd Hollywood romance narrative. I expected a great deal more from this film.

Posted 2009/03/29 at 18h14ET in Movie Commentary.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Piece of the Action (1977)

Saturday, March 7, 2009 A Piece of the Action. Feature film. (1977, 135 mins) IMDB ... Who would you have over for dinner? Sidney Poitier or Bill Cosby. ... A PIECE OF THE ACTION is the third film starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Poitier also directed the films. (And yes, I would be fascinating to have both them sitting around a table for dinner.) We're in Chicago and I love the setup for this film. It's clever, fun and interesting. It starts during the dark of night. Crosby is a cat burglar robbing a vault in a bank. He's by himself, all the tools he needs, and doesn't speak a word of dialogue for at least the first twenty minutes of the film. It must have been killing him. His robbery goes off successfully. (It includes a jump from a six or seven story window. There was a similar scene in their earlier films.) When the cops arrive during the daylight, they haven't a clue and we catch a glimpse of James Earl Jones as a detect...

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read...

No Reservations (2007)

Saturday, May 2, 2009 No Reservations. Feature film. (2007, 104 mins) IMDB ... I so much wanted to like this film but couldn't ... T his film had two things I like a great deal: romance and cooking, but they didn't come together for me in this film. I think I know why. The female lead doesn't strike me as a romantic leading lady. That's just me. I also found the story line stale and uninteresting. Our hero lives in NYC working at a fine dining restaurant where she is the chef and dictator. Everything about her life is about cooking. Nothing else seems to matter. No children. No relationships. Then her life is kicked apart. Her sister and niece travel to visit her but before they arrive, there's an accident. The mother dies and little Zoe has to live with her aunt. Our hero struggles to include a new person into her life but what follows is so predictable as to be boring. To add even more complications to our hero's life, her sous...