This 1964 effort from Jack Cardiff could (with some recasting) have been Monty Python and the Big Bell or Carry on Viking. Glum faced actors mouth woeful dialogue while the action scenes are so stagey and stilted they might as well have left the clapper board at the beginning of each one. All this is accompanied by the most discordant, ghastly "music" score by the justifiably obscure Dusan Radic. The golden bell manages to roll down a cliffside without a scratch or the slightest deformation while clanging all the way (gold is too soft to behave like this). All in all this falls into the category of "has to be seen to be believed".

Every Tale, fable, or legend has a basis in some small fact. In this film called " The Long Ships " we have a Viking reciting a legend which was once told to his people of a great bell which was as high as 'three tall men.' Said to have been created by the monks of Byzantium, in actuality, they had indeed cast one out of solid gold, but was small enough to be handed as a gift to the German emperor, for his personal chapel, during the middle ages. As with most 'fish' stories, the size of the bell grew with each retelling. For this movie, the seekers are Northmen, not Germanic knights as in the original tale. Still, the movie is entertaining enough due to the major stars in it. Here we have, Richard Widmark as Rolfe, a seafaring Viking who is captured by Aly Mansuh, the Moorish prince (Sidney Poitier) who threatens him with torture is he does not reveal its location. Then there is Russ Tamblyn as Orm, his very agile brother and then of course there is international star Oskar Homolka as Krok, who is their father. All in all, a good film, for an otherwise lazy afternoon. ****

I absolutely fell in love with this movie in 1964 at age 11. I saw it a dozen times in the 2 weeks it was at a local theater. The spectacle, action, humor, setting, characters totally absorbed me. I'm glad other viewers caught the humor. One of my all-time favorite movies. I have always had a fascination with Medieval History (Byzantium, North African Muslim, Spanish, Viking) and I think this movie contributed a lot to it. The setting in the vaguely North African "emirate" just did it totally for me. Richard Widmark was one of my first gay crushes (nice hairy chest) And I didn't realize until my 30's just how much I liked Colin Blakely. I wanted to be taken captive by a bunch of Vikings. I loved the scene where the Vikings took over the harem. Funny, very entertaining and just well choreographed.

I'm of an age where I was brought up on films which suffer by comparison to today's, so the fact that the effects were not really comparable (for instance) is not a factor in my comments.But this just wasn't very good. The story was weak, the acting was not so much bad as not really appropriate to the characters, the script was drivel, Poitier was truly dreadful, and the musical score simply didn't fit what was on screen. And never mind the miraculous bell.The best thing about it is the host of prominent British actors who you can't recognise through their beards, but you can have fun trying if you know beforehand that they're in it.On the whole, though, too poor to even be classed as fun, I'm afraid.