Film Forum

U.S., 1958
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Ernest Borgnine
Cinematography by Jack Cardiff
Approx. 115 min.

“Douglas plays Einar, the legitimate son of Viking king Borgnine (who was actually two years younger than Douglas). Early in the film, the Viking king raids the English coast, kills the foreign king and rapes the queen. The child that is born from that assault grows up to become Eric, played by Curtis, a Viking slave who knows nothing of his violent origins. As fate would have it, Douglas and Curtis come to blows, culminating with Douglas' eye being forcibly removed by Curtis' falcon. (And to think, just two years earlier, Douglas lost an ear in Lust for Life, 1956...) This sets off an overwhelming, life-long hatred between the two half-brothers, neither one aware of their shared bloodline.” – Scott McGee, TCM

Presented with support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s and The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film

Reviews

“Douglas, doing a bangup, free-wheeling job as the ferocious and disfigured Viking fighter, fits the part splendidly.”
– Variety

“There is scarcely a minute in its almost two hours that something muscular isn’t happening on the screen.”
– Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

“You haven't seen such general hell-raising on the screen since Cecil B. De Mille.”
– Bosley Crowther, The New York Times