Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Year:  1935
Rating: 7.0

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This old-fashioned extravaganza from the great director Cecil B. DeMille has the potential of relating one of the great historical events - a huge clash of cultures between Christianity and Islam as well as the story of two legendary figures of the past - Richard I (better know as the Lionheart) and the Muslim Saladin who rose from nothing to control a large empire in the Middle East that stretched from Syria to Egypt including Jerusalem which he conquered in 1187 after nearly 100 years of rule by the Christians. Both Richard and Saladin were bigger than life as they cut a swath of influence and adventure in Europe and the Middle East. Instead though, DeMille brings this down for the most part to a romantic domestic drama with its share of palace intrigue (recall King John from Robin Hood who is his brother) and the piety that DeMille likes to bring to many of his films.


DeMille does provide one large action set piece which is the siege and taking of Acre and a horse charge later on, but much of the film centers around Richard, his fiancée, the woman he comes to love and Saladin who also takes a liking for this woman. So we end up with a love triangle between Richard, Saladin and Berengaria the Princess of Navarre with the now ex-fiancée sulking. That part is as far as I can tell total hogwash but at a high level - a very high level - much of the story is based on historical fact.


After Jerusalem fell to the Infidels, monks (in this case the wonderful C. Aubrey Smith) spread out over Europe fanning the flames of Christianity and the Holy cause of re-taking the city. Most of the royalty of Europe bought into this and sent troops and often accompanied them - such as Richard and Phillipe II of France. The relationship between Phillipe and Richard is complicated as all this royalty was throughout Europe up till WWI - Richard rules parts of France, his mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine, another extraordinary historical figure who was married to the King of France, helped lead the Second Crusade and then later married Edward II, the King of England and gave birth to Richard and John. Like I said, complicated. Richard is engaged (part of a treaty) to Phillipe's sister Alice in the film or Alys in real life.


In rather a silly made up plot point Richard joins the Crusades (this being the Third) in order to get away from Alice and Phillipe also joins the Crusades in order to pressure Richard to marry his sister who comes along as well. In real life again, she was suspected of being the mistress of Edward II, Richard's father. Yikes. So off they go to conquer the Holy Land (the film omits that Richard was in no hurry as he stopped off to conquer both Sicily and Cyprus), but along the way he runs into Berengaria and falls in love and marries her. She comes along on the Crusade as well! Somehow with all this going on Richard does manage to fight the Muslims and beats Saladin a few times - he was again in reality a brilliant fighter.


Richard never conquers Jerusalem because of conflicts within the Christian forces and because his brother John is conspiring against him back home. But he does sign a peace treaty with Saladin (who is surprisingly portrayed as a very honorable man) which allows Christian pilgrims to enter Jerusalem. Signal the choir and light streaming down.


By no means is this a boring film, just a bit too much romantic drama for my taste and at 128 minutes perhaps a bit long in the tooth. The acting from Henry Wilcoxon as Richard (he had been Marc Antony in DeMille's Cleopatra the year before), Loretta Young as a beatific Berengaria, Alan Hale as Richard's comic sidekick (a role he was to play often in Errol Flynn movies) and Katherine DeMille (Cecil's adopted daughter and later married to Anthony Quinn) are all fine.


After the movie ends Richard goes back to England, is captured and ransomed, forgives John and goes off to war again where he was killed in 1199, seven years after the Third Crusade ended. In films he is almost always portrayed as heroic and fair - heroic for sure but he also killed nearly 3,000 prisoners in the Crusade and incited anti-Jewish violence in England. Berengaria is said to never have made it to England during Richard's lifetime. They had no children and so John became King which led to the Magna Carta which in a long and winding manner led to democracy. Eleanor lived to 1204 and had ten children who were all wedded into other Royal families. Her finest moment though may have been being played by creaky voice Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter.