The tartars casts some of the same characters as "The Conqueror" which starred John Wayne and Susan Heyward and is widely known as one of the worst big-budget Hollywood movies ever made. It is so bad it is usually seen as a comedy due to awful scripting and acting.The Tartars takes Wayne's character 30-40 years into the future in the shape of Orson Welles. Welles here attacks Victor Mature, miscast as a Viking (?), and murders his wife. Terrible vengeance is the theme of this laughable epic. It is hard to tell whether the worst thing about this movie is the acting, the script, or the costumes featuring all the men in mini-skirts.Turner movies has both epics in the library and should combine them on any weekend billed as 'The worst historical double feature of all time'.

A stilted historical epic with pretensions of Hollywood grandeur, The Tartars remains a viable option for admirers of sixties Euro-cinema. Victor Mature, looking ridiculous in period garb and elevator sandals, plays Oleg, a Viking prince who's somehow found his way to the Russian steppes, where he's been invited to join forces with the Mongol hordes in war against the opposing Slavic hordes. Oleg refuses and immediately becomes a target for Tartar big man Burundai (Orson Welles, who's clearly enjoying himself). Oddly, IMDb doesn't list a director for the film, but MGM vet Richard Thorpe was at the helm, and his experience directing costume dramas (such as 1954's Knights of the Round Table) is evident. Featuring terrific art design, plenty of action, and a fine score by Renzo Rossellini, The Tartars is clearly head and shoulders above the usual sword and sandal pictures of the period—even though Mature seems out of his (admittedly shallow) depth.

Victor Mature and Orson Welles head a continental cast in I Tartari, a badly dubbed Italian film about the Vikings and the Tartars set somewhere in the steppes of Eastern Europe. Both of these American film icons had nothing better to do. Welles just needed the money for his own projects and Mature after the studio system was shutting down was putting his career into half speed as he concentrated on golf more than films. Like the cowboys and the farmers in Oklahoma, the Tartars and Vikings just feud because its natural both being imperialist sorts. The Tartars are moving west and would eventually reach the Balkans. The Vikings expanded in every direction including voyages southward down river routes into what is now Byelorussia and the Ukraine.The Tartars make an offer the Vikings under Mature can and do refuse. The Tartars want to have a military alliance and attack the native Slavs, but Mature who has married into the Slavs refuses and negotiations break down. The Tartar chief is killed and his daughter is carried off by the Vikings and Mature's brother has a yen for her and they get to kanoodling.Orson Welles who is the brother of the slain chief takes over and his troops capture Mature's wife. He's willing to exchange Mature's wife for his niece, but not after a little forced kanoodling of his own, brought on as Welles and the wife are being entertained by some sexy oriental strip dancing and Orson's hormones get the better of him.I won't go any farther in describing this disaster of an Italian spectacle film just to say it all ends rather badly for just about everyone in the film. There were spots in the film where Mature's English was dubbed and I can't see why other than Mature could not summon up enough conviction to give a passable interpretation of a performance. Given the material I can't blame him. Even Welles, professional that he is, looks positively bored even when getting ready to rape Mature's wife. Victor Mature would be off the screen for five years before appearing in Peter Sellers's After The Fox in a good natured satire of an actor very much like himself.Vic and Orson really hit the bottom doing this one.

Sometimes there are films that are so bad they are good, even great, see "Welcome to Woop Woop." (1998) "The Maze." (1953.) The Conqueror" (1956). "I Tarari" (1961) is in this vaulted class of movies. Staring the great Orson Wells and Victor Mature it just collapse under it's own sincerity, what a hoot!. The lines are stock and over blown. Don't bother with the plot what ever it is, just listen to the lines and watch the really bad acting, have a bottle of cheap red wine to get the full effect. I love this movie and give it a 10. It is worthy of an MST3K treatment. Orson Wells must have needed money to make a movie he wanted to make, as others have pointed out in this section. It's a lot of fun to watch with friends.