Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Exuberant Excess of Sixties Vikings
Last of the Vikings (1961)
The blockbuster success of 1958’s The Vikings spawned a number of would-be successors that tried to make up for lower budgets by amping up the action. The ever-lurid Italian cinema took the lead with two adventures directed or co-directed by Mario Bava, Last of the Vikings and Erik the Conqueror, but the UK was right behind with their own over-the-top Viking saga, The Long Ships. You can call these guilty pleasures if you like, but that doesn’t stop them from being thoroughly enjoyable. Form shield wall, Vikings, and prepare for attack!
Last of the Vikings
Rating: ***
Origin: Italy/France, 1961
Director: Giacomo Gentilomo
Source: Mill Creek DVD
This is a solid Viking adventure film, a cut above most Italian action movies of its day. It stars Cameron Mitchell and George Ardisson as the male Viking leads in parts similar to their roles later in the year in the even better Erik the Conqueror. The film opens with a sea battle, after which Harald (Mitchell) and his brother Guntar (Ardisson) return to Norway after ten years of sea roving, only to find that all the free Viking chieftains have been crushed under the heel of Bad King Sveno (Edmund Purdom, Sword of Freedom) — who, to add insult to injury, has adopted the effete ways of civilized Europe. Harald vows vengeance, because that’s what Vikings do, and begins gathering the surviving warriors under his banner.