Review #545: 'The Viking Queen' (1967)

Never a company to let something like historical accuracy get in the way of some good ol' fashioned blood shed and some barely covered breasts, Hammer Studios went all-out anachronistic in 1967, telling the tale of The Viking Queen, Salinas (Carita), a British druid who was not a Viking and seemed to worship the Greek god Zeus. It's a rather dull tale about Salinas' love affair with invading Roman general Justinian (Don Murray), whose truce causes both the Druids and the Romans to heavily oppose it and wage war against each other. With Justinian raising taxes of the rich merchants, and lowering them for the poor small-folk, a plot is forged between the merchants and the usurping Roman Octavian (Andrew Keir) to overthrow Justinian and conquer the Druids.

Shot with an almost sickening lucidity, The Viking Queen is certainly an example of Hammer's strives for visual lushness and oily-skinned beauties, possibly to compensate for the sheer monotony on show. This was Finnish fashion model Cairta's only starring role (she appeared in small roles in a couple of other productions), and although she certainly looks the part (in terms of what Hammer were obviously looking for), her inexperience shows and zones in a rather flat performance. The wildly historical inaccuracy can certainly be forgiven if the film was entertaining, such as it was in Hammer's Rasputin The Mad Monk (1966), but there is nothing going for this film apart from the odd amusing camp performance, and the sight of Nita Lorraine's (credited as Nubian Girl Slave) shiny flesh. Strictly for Hammer completists and those bored on a Sunday afternoon.


Directed by: Don Chaffey
Starring: Don Murray, Carita, Donald Houston, Andrew Keir, Adrienne Corri
Country: UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #260: 'Pete's Dragon' (1977)

Pete (Sean Marshall) is a poor orphan boy who arrives in the small town of Passamaquoddy to escape his cruel, slave-driving adopted parents. The residents are generally nice folk, only they don't take too well to Pete due to his large, mainly invisible dragon named Elliott. The first person to see it is local loveable drunk Lampie (Mickey Rooney), who makes his concerns known only to be laughed at. So Pete is taken in by Lampie's daughter Nora (Helen Reddy), a lighthouse worker who is still pining for her partner who disappeared at sea almost a year prior. Trouble starts to brew though when a medicine wheeler-dealer named Dr. Terminus (Jim Dale) arrives in town and sees profit in the dragon.

One of Disney's few attempts to cash in on the success of Mary Poppins (1964), combining live-action with animation, Pete's Dragon is one of their lesser known efforts (although it does have it's nostalgia-filled fanbase). It was made in a time where freckly ginger kids were considered cute and likeable child characters, and the adults overacted to the point where they looked like they were presenting a children's TV show. Containing very few memorable songs (if any) and some very shoddy animation, Pete's Dragon is one of Disney's laziest and poorest productions. None of Disney's classic animators (the 'Nine Old Men') worked on the film and it shows. Of what little dragon there is, it appears very little effort or imagination was put into it.

Thank the lord then, for Dr. Terminus, played with enjoyable enthusiasm by Jim Dale (who appeared in a few Carry On films) who saves the film from complete embarrassment. He gets the best song 'Passamaquoddy', in which he tries to charm the townsfolk into buying his crap medicine that has already made one of them fat and turned another one of their hair pink, while repeatedly mispronouncing the name of the town. He's like a malpractising Del Boy, and is so enjoyable that I was rooting for him to get his hands on the annoying ginger kid and his crappily animated dragon. Not a total failure then, but instantly forgettable, overlong, excruciatingly squeaky-clean, and exhaustively enthusiastic.


Directed by: Don Chaffey
Starring: Sean Marshall, Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #10: 'One Million Years B.C.' (1966)

The thing best remembered about this Hammer fantasy is not the movie itself, but the iconic image of Raquel Welsh, which has donned many a students’ wall throughout the decades. The movie itself is a bit of fun, but relatively forgettable.

It tells the story of Tumak, a neatly-bearded cavemen. One of two sons to the tribe’s leader, he is a member of the Rock tribe who seem to spend their time jumping on top of warthogs, squabbling over chunks of meat, and having dramatic stick-fights. His overbearing father rules over the camp like a nomadic Hitler, and banishes Tumak after a squabble over chunks of warthog meat leads to a dramatic stick-fight. After walking the land for a while and meeting some of ancient Earth’s giant monsters, he walks upon a tribe who seem to exist with a more peaceful outlook on life. Also, the women in the tribe are all blonde, skimpy-dressed, and seem to shave their legs.

It’s a vision of man’s beginning as seen through the eyes of Karl Pilkington. The giant creatures created by Ray Harryhausen are, as usual, fantastic to watch, but as the film goes on I started to wonder where the creators got their crazy ideas from. Obviously, the film wasn’t ever going to strive for historical accuracy, but when I saw the scene in which a giant turtle attacks the tribe I was gazing open-mouthed at the TV. It’s the kind of lunacy that makes the Hammer films of lesser quality still so endearing. Harryhausen defended the film, stating that he “didn’t make it for professors.”  Take Harryhausen’s words and just enjoy the sights on show, be it a giant gecko, a dinosaur fight or Raquel Welch.

Directed by: Don Chaffey
Starring: Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Percy Herbert
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie