The Norseman

The Norseman opens in 1006 AD on a Viking long ship in the midst of a storm.  Prince Thorvald (Lee Majors) has sailed across the Atlantic in search of his missing father, King Eurich.  Ragnar (Cornell Wilde) is second in command and master of the ship.  The Wizard (Jack Elam) provides mostly useless omens from beneath his dark hood.  Prince Eric (played by the director’s son) is along for no apparent reason though he is the narrator.  Speaking of the narration, Eric is offering it years later so an older man’s voice introduces many of the characters.  However, if we are going to narrate from one character’s point of view, that character should be in every scene; he isn’t.  He is twelve and it is baffling why he is even on the ship.  Is Thorvald risking the whole family on this expedition?

 

Only three natives are worthy of note.  There is Kiwonga, the chief.  He is all hostility and has no problem tossing wave after wave of his men into the metal blades of the Norsemen.  In a flashback, it is shown that his hostility began when Winetta – the sexy Indian – showed too much interest in Rolf, one of King Eurich’s men.  Kiwonga is all screams and shouts, bellicose in every scene.  Next there is the old woman, who is likewise mostly angry and hostile but more thoughtful than Kiwonga.  Lastly, there is Winetta, the only member of the tribe who has any sympathy for the Norsemen.  In fact, she sides against her tribe to assist in the rescue of King Eurich and his men.  Also of note, she has a sexy formfitting mini-dress whereas every other woman wears off-the-rack skins that do nothing for their figures.  Among the rest of the natives, it is funny to see how white some were.  The call for extras had some loose standards.  Moreover, some were rather portly; we have a well-fed band of natives.

 

Thorvald has come to this distant land with approximately 20 men, a rather paltry force for a supposed Prince on a mission to rescue the King.  In flashbacks, we see the King celebrating with the natives and see that he has fewer than 10 men.  Oddly, the natives captured and blinded the King and his band; I am unaware of blinding practiced by Native Americans.  The blinded Norsemen are housed in a cave some distance from the village and they are forced to grind grain into meal.  So, there is this daily march to and from the cave.  Why bother?  They are blind so running away isn’t much of a threat.  No, it just shows how wicked and mean the Indians are.

 

The battles are a disaster.  A score of Vikings with shields and armor should be devastating to a Stone Age tribe that charges into battle virtually naked and with relatively primitive weapons.  Instead, it is the other way around.  The one mass battle between Viking and Indian is declared a loss for the Vikings though during the battle it seemed as if the Vikings were cleaning up.  But after they run away, Ragnar names it a failure that cost too many lives.  Granted, the Vikings have only one crew vs. a tribe.  Also, the Norsemen did break formation and allow a random melee to ensue which really diminishes their technological advantages.  Though they began with a shield wall, it shattered almost immediately under the native charge.

 

The Vikings are ridiculously equipped.  First, they have horned helmets; this is a common misconception but even the most cursory look at history would have nixed the horns.  Second, they are wearing breastplates; a Viking who wore chainmail was a wealthy man and breastplates were not available; the typical Viking would have had shield and helmet.  Third, their shields are metal; the Viking shield was wooden with either leather or iron rim; also, it was fairly large whereas the ones in the movie are little more than bucklers.  Fourth, they have non-Viking swords and axes.  The axes were particularly jarring, looking like something from a fantasy movie rather than an historical epic.  Fifth, they have crossbows.  Crossbows were not used in warfare until the Battle of Hastings (1066), 60 years in the future.  Apparently, the film maker used Hagar the Horrible for historical research!

 

The natives aren’t any better.  The Vikings landed on the east coast of what is now Canada, not known to be balmy, and yet the locals are running around in loincloths.  The movie was filmed in Florida, which is rather balmy.  Florida is very like Medieval Canada, which is certainly why the location was chosen.  You know, palmetto trees and such were all over Canada back in the day.  Or perhaps this movie presumes that this particular band of Norsemen really did land in Florida.

 

Of particular note, one of the Norsemen is Deacon Jones, Hall of Fame Football Defensive Lineman; it should be noted that Deacon is black.  A brief narration at the beginning of the movie explains that he was captured during a raid in Africa.  Why that makes him a Norseman is unclear.  He is called Thrall, which is the Norse word for slave.  He is the slave of Olaf, a berserker whose tongue he cut out.  Thrall wears Olaf’s tongue around his neck.  Huh?

 

Speaking of Olaf, he is the butt kicker of the outfit.  He is routinely the rearguard and is seen as the lead berserker.  At one point, he drowns two natives simultaneously.  However, he is terrible at throwing his axe and looks less than menacing in his tan skirt and fuzzy horned helmet.

 

Lee Majors is wooden as can be.  His delivery sounds like that of an Indian in a 1950s Cowboy movie – slow and stilled, as if English isn’t his first language.  Even though his dialogue is admittedly bad, he manages to imbue it with all the emotion of a potato.   He also has some odd pronunciations.  He says ‘Norzman’ rather than Norseman.  Then there was the first Norseman who died, Bjorn.  Amazingly, both he and Cornell Wilde pronounced it Bee-John.  Really?  Hadn’t you guys ever heard of Bjorn Borg?  He was a famous tennis player in 1978.  These guys must have sailed from the Fjords (Fee-Johds) of Norway.

 

After the initial encounter on the beach where Bjorn is killed, the Norsemen row up river for a couple of days.  When Thorvald takes the berserkers to rescue his father, he tells Ragnar to meet him at the beach by day’s end.  Fine, it is a river and raising the anchor should get you moving.  No, actually, it seems to be a pond.  There is absolutely no flow.  The ship must be rowed to move and comes to a stop when the rowing halts.  Yes, that is probably useful for filming but somewhat irksome when it figures in the plot.

 

Why is it that every Norseman shot in the long ship must tumble over the gunwale and splash into the river?  None of you could fall inside the boat?  Well, that would be less cinematic and this is an epic.  Sigh.

 

I saw the Norseman in the theaters lo those many years ago and thought it was a great movie.  Seeing it again, it is one long disappointment.  One wonders how such films get funding.