I'd be willing to bet Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier would have each donated their fee for this movie to have it burned in a Viking funeral or tied to an IED in a field full of camels. It's just one embarrassing and improbable scene after another. To wit: Why would Poitier sacrifice one of his personal guards just to illustrate to Widmark how nasty execution can be? And then change his mind about executing Widmark anyway !! What a tool. That's not leadership, that's a fool. Then they go on a fishing expedition for the golden bell. Widmark and a Viking buddy chip away at the rock-encrusted bell with styrofoam ''rocks.'' Then they somehow manage to get it rigged up for lowering into the way-too-small Viking ship but all the enslaved Vikings are bolted to the ramp, right in the way of the bell. It would have killed them in the best of circumstances but, of course, the bell teeters, tumbles down about 1000 feet of mountainside, and drags all the Vikings with it. Most of them would have died smashed on the rocks, but as the bell makes it final tumble into the water we see a couple of Vikings plop into the water, too. Drowned? No way. The entire crew survives to row the golden bell - which for its size must way about 15 tonnes - back to Qatar in a flat-bottomed Viking boat. I've seen a lot of sword-and-sandal epics in my time, including the cr#ppy modern ones featuring Colin Whatshisname and Brad Pitt, but this one ranks right down there among the worst, even including the junk pumped out of Europe mid-century. Easily the worst Widmark or Poitier movie I've ever seen.
Review of The Long Ships
