THE LONG SHIPS (1964) ** For all of its efforts, there's no real sense of high energy to it. I get more a pejorative compare and contrast Viking and Moorish civilization, such as it was, with comic book flourishes. Ah, whatever, Sidney Poitier in a viking flick, you've got to give it a shot. Actually Mr. Poitier and Rosanna Schiaffino are a kind of cute couple, they might have been something if his ambitions and other 20 wives didn't keep getting in the way. There's lots of hitting people over the heads with various implements, and a very PG rendition of the viking horde descending upon a sleeping harem, but any such focus is so short-lived as to not relieve events with any particular focus anyway, and the possibility of a sense of relief suggests either suspense or intensity that isn't there either. There've been many worse, but without much direction to speak of, no particularly convincing acting including the great one, and intense moments lacking signature intensity, you kind of maybe get the idea that there wasn't anything that great about being a viking, or a Moorish lord either.
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