Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Einar, brutal son of the viking Ragnar and future heir to his throne, tangles with clever slave Eric, for the hand of a beautiful English maiden.
The Vikings is a handsome, rousing Hollywood adventure that makes excellent use of its Scandinavian locations and widescreen Technirama photography — the fjord vistas and longship sequences are genuinely spectacular and represent the film's clearest strength. The plot is a serviceable but fairly conventional clash-of-rivals swashbuckler elevated by the secret-kinship twist, though it never transcends its pulpy origins. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis bring star energy and physical commitment, but the characterizations are broad and the supporting cast is functional rather than distinguished. Novelty is middling — it was among the first major Hollywood Viking epics and has a distinctive flavor, but the love-triangle and rival-brothers framework is well-worn. The ending, with its Norse funeral pyre, is memorable and tonally appropriate but not dramatically surprising.