Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe is the 1952 epic adventure from M-G-M. Ivanhoe is based on the book by Sir Walter Scott and tells the tale of a Saxon nobleman and his fight against the Norman tyrant King John. Ivanhoe is a lavish big budget production from the studio that defined lavish in the golden age of Hollywood. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture of 1952. Of course the reason to watch this, as with any swashbuckler, is for the scenery and the swordplay, and Ivanhoe has plenty of both. In addition the film boasts a surprisingly strong cast including luminaries Elizabeth Taylor and George Sanders.

You may have heard of all of this before in the tale of a Robin of Locksley known as Robin Hood. Not only are the two stories cast in the same period, much of the players are the same. Here Robin Hood plays second banana to Ivanhoe admiring him from the sidelines and coming to his aid when needed. Though the film is colorful and fun and has stood the test of time well it is not as fun and complete a story as the newly restored Errol Flynn 1938 version of Robin Hood released by rival studio Warner Brothers. The problem with Ivanhoe comes in its retelling of Scott’s complex story. Ivanhoe is not just a swashbuckling film. The movie delves not only into political intrigue of the usurper of a kingdom; it also tries to tell of the complex religious struggle in Europe, and especially in England, at that time. The film just has too much of a good thing. The hero, a suave and sturdy Robert Taylor, has not one but two beautiful women pining for him. One is Joan Fontaine as the lovely, if somewhat cold, Saxon noblewoman Lady Rowena to whom Ivanhoe is betrothed. The other is Rebecca the Jewish daughter of the banker Isaac of York played by a lovely Elizabeth Taylor. One gets the feeling that as the other woman Rebecca’s part should have been smaller were it not for the star power of Elizabeth Taylor who gets second billing in the film. Perhaps in response Fontaine decided her part wasn’t worth the effort because her take on the Saxon noblewoman is a bit cold and vacant.

The bad guys are a group of Norman nobles led by George Sanders who as usual makes a great impact playing the heavy. Of course this is a bit of a departure from his previous excellent work in Rebecca and in All About Eve, but he is good nonetheless. Plus we get to hear him say the name Rebecca again which he seems to hold onto with a relish that reminds viewers of the Hitchcock masterpiece. Sanders plays Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert the most feared warrior in all of England. Guilbert falls in love with the beautiful Rebecca and becomes willing to risk his reputation for her if only she would ask him to adding depth to a character who in any other film would simply be a shallow baddie.

There is a lot of unrequited love in the film but there is also quite a bit of action. Most of these sequences are provided by none other than Robin Hood and his band of Sherwood ruffians. Here their stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is given a specific aim. Ivanhoe and his coalition must raise 150 thousand silver marks to ransom their king Richard who went to the Crusades and somehow got captured on his way back by an Austrian lord and is being held for ransom. Why it is better to declare civil war on the Normans in one’s own country rather than fight some Austrians in another country I don’t know but the Saxons and the Jews decide that together they will ransom this Norman king since he seems to be the lesser of two evils when compared to his brother John. Of course history tells us that Richard would rather be out fighting a war and that he no sooner gets back than he leaves again eventually getting himself killed and leaving John Landless in charge again, but that is beside the point. No swashbuckler should ever be confused with real history and it is not likely to happen here.

The most impressive battle scenes occur when Ivanhoe and his entourage are captured by the evil Guilbert and held in his castle Torquilstone. The merry men, though they are never called that, mount a siege of the castle. The biggest problem here is that it is hard for modern viewers to keep interest in older action films. We have gotten so used to the erratic and often overdone editing of fight sequences that older films with less editing often feel slow and drawn out. The same holds true here for a long seize the castle scene. Of course there are some issues that could have been dealt with such as obviously rubber swords that bend on camera, poorly trained extras whose knowledge of cinematic swordplay seems to involve mostly hacking motions, and scores of arrows that fall from above with no obvious velocity or trajectory. But filmmaking on such a grand scale was still a work in progress at the time and so the film can be forgiven some of its faults.

Ivanhoe is a fun and colorful swashbuckler with all of the requisite pieces of lovely ladies, swordplay, castle keeps, and jousting in abundance. But the film seems to take a little longer than the modern film viewer is willing to invest to reach its inevitable conclusion. Never was Elizabeth Taylor lovelier and never was political and religious intrigue handled with a lighter touch. But if you want the fun and adventure that only a swashbuckler packs I suggest you start with the 1938 version of Robin Hood. Or if you are more interested in the royal intrigue that led to the infighting between the king of England and his brother I suggest you watch the 1968 masterpiece The Lion in Winter. If you get the DVD check out some of the bonus material especially the hilarious preview for the film Scaramouche.

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