Silly, but Fun


With a movie like this, you have to take into consideration the time and place it was filmed. Movies in the 1940s and 1950s did not intend to be historically accurate or even show truthful depictions of events. They were merely intended to entertain and provide another way to show damsels in distress and mighty heroes riding to their rescue.

King Richard and the Crusaders is one of those movies. Its fun, has some great actors, and has a devilishly silly plot that still keeps you watching. Rex Harrison as Saladin (I hate how the West pronounces his name as Sala-din as opposed to Sa-la-had-din) is patently hilarious at first. But he does give the character many of the traits of honor, loyalty and bravery that the real Saladin possessed. George Sanders as King Richard was also good as he gave the king a kind of rakish charm Sanders had employed better in the Saint and Falcon movies. Laurence Harvey as Sir Kenneth had me flip flopping all move about whether I liked his character. I've only seen Harvey as William Travis in the Alamo (1960) and it was hard for me not to remember him that way. Still, he did a decent enough job playing a lovestruck Scot (and kind of p***y whipped at that) and his journey from king hater to loyal subject to outcast to hero status was well done. The lovely Virginia Mayo is just so amazing to see. While her Lady Edith was typical of the heroine of these movies, she did have some fire and held her own against her other castmates. The villains in this movie were straight out of central casting, but I was okay with that. I've always loved these sword and sand pictures and this one did not disappoint.

While historically inaccurate and, in hindsight, culturally insensitive, it was still a fun movie.




My memory foam pillow says it can't remember my face. I can tell its lying.

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Yeah it is corny, but I dig it for its commitment to it.

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