I love this movie so much

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

hyped garbage

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

King Richard I, known to posterity as the Lion Heart and, according to this script, to his friends and family as Dick, certainly has his work cut out on his Third Crusade. He faces a host of vicious and unscrupulous foes and they're just his fellow Crusaders. Lucky for him, that flashing-eyed rascal Saladin is a stickler for fair play as well as fancying cousin Edith, so things could be worse.Though screen writer John Twist has supplied the more idiotic dialogue, the eccentric narrative stems from Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman itself. By the time of its publication in the 1820s, Richard had long become one of the great romantic legends of English history. In reality he was a ferocious warrior of the 'kill first and ask questions later' school, but a useless ruler. So when Virginia Mayo as the fictitious Edith utters the much mocked line: "War! War! That's all you think of Dick Plantagenet!" at the end of the movie, it's not far from the truth. Except that Richard's descendants did not adopt the name Plantagenet until a couple of centuries later.Of course no-one expects factual accuracy in this kind of movie, but it's also rather dull in places. Too much time is taken up by the interminable feuding in camp at the start of the picture, while it ends in a frenzy of action in which it's hard to discern what's going on. Then there's the business of Sir Kenneth, hit in the chest by Saladin's arrow and falling from his horse, only to be prancing about with no harm done within a minute or two. I have seen similar films that are worse though, there is the lush photography and an excellent score from Max Steiner that's worthy of a more prodigious production and while some of the action scenes are very average, the joust and fight between Richard and Sir Kenneth is well done.Rex Harrison as Saladin and George Sanders, looking less bored and cynical than usual, as Richard offer enjoyable performances, though the latter could have been played by a younger actor as the King was in his early thirties at the time of the Crusade. Laurence Harvey though is fairly dire as Sir Kenneth, not sounding remotely Scottish, and his love scenes with Barbara Mayo fall flat. Harvey always had his fans, but those who have speculated as to why an actor so lacking in talent and charisma became a star will find no answers here.

In 1977, Harry Medved wrote an amazing book. First, he was only a teenager when it was published. Second, he helped to create the craze of enjoying bad films, as it was entitled "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time". Third, it came out just before videotapes--so he had to, in many cases, go archives and view a ton of bad films to ultimately come up with his list. Now I do not think every movie on it is that bad, but I do think it's incredibly good--and his book made very entertaining reading. In fact, it was so entertaining that I have made it my life's goal to see all 50 and "King Richard and the Crusaders" represents the 49th film! To be among the last dozen or so that I've seen means that I have had to do a lot of digging myself to find these last elusive films. In the case of "King Richard", I had to get a Chinese DVD of the film, as Warner Brothers never released one in the US. The print is acceptable but what this really weird viewing were the DVD captions--which is often a problem with Chinese produced DVDs. However, "King Richard" is much worst than the usual terrible captioning by the Chinese. In practically every sentence, there are weird mistranslations that occur because they are either using a bad computer program or a badly educated Chinese person to do the captions. The examples of mistranslations abound but here are just a few:ACTUAL CAPTIONS (actual word first, followed by captioned words): liege-league, fancied-offended, jester-just, debt-death, Christendom-crescent dumb, seldom educated-sodomy.That last one IS a heck of a mistake! But, on the other hand, it sure made watching the film with captions a lot more exciting and unpredictable. Plus, on its own, "King Richard" is a pretty dull film.Now not all the bad dialog is due to crappy captioning. On its own, the film was pretty wretched. I loved when King Richard's cousin (Virginia Mayo) kept calling him "Dick Plantagenet". I also liked when one of the characters talked about "...killing him dead". Is there any OTHER way to kill someone?! And, throughout the film, the love scenes were just laughably bad--about as romantic as a flea bath!The film is supposedly about 'Good King Richard' during the Crusades. As a history teacher, the film made me cringe. It was accurate in a few ways but so much of it was just hooey. In particular, the Sir Walter Scott notion that King Richard I (also called "The Lionhearted") was a good and just man. In reality, he was one of the most vicious and cruel kings in English history--more interested in splitting open heads in battle than ruling his domains in England and western France. In fact, he practically never spent any time in England. Much of the time, he was out hanging with his male friends and slaughtering entire cities--even ones that surrendered to him! By any standard he was a blood-thirsty maniac--except, of course, Sir Walter Scott's! In this film, I laughed out loud when Richard was angry at a knight who "unjustly persecuted and killed unarmed Muslims". This was Richard's personal hobby in real life! Raping, pillaging and murdering all in the name of God--that was our beloved Richard!Even if you accepted the film's premise that Richard was a swell guy, I still thought his casting was very odd. The very erudite actor, George Sanders, played 'Dick Plantagenet' but was simply too fat and old and the thought of him being unequaled in battle seemed ludicrous--unless it's a fight to get the last sandwich at a buffet! Now I should talk--I'm not exactly svelte myself--but at least I am not playing a macho warrior. The story is a whole lot of nonsense about a conspiracy within Richard's ranks to kill him and wrest control of the crusade by some fictional knight. And, oddly, he was saved by a Scotsman and, of all people, Saladin--the Muslim leader himself! And, in the process, there were lots of love scenes involving Mayo and the Scot (Laurence Harvey) and Saladin (Rex Harrison)--none of which seemed to make any sense. Mostly it just seemed like a dull and clichéd plot that paled compared to GOOD costume dramas. In fact, aside from the horrid dialog, I think this was the worst thing about the film--even worse than its inaccuracy.So the bottom line is this--is "King Richard and the Crusaders" bad enough to be on a worst film list? Probably not. It's bad, but I have seen a few costumers that were worse...but not many! The only good thing I could see in the film (other than nice costumes) was Rex Harrison. Despite wearing dark paint and a goatee, he actually came off much better than the Christians in the film--who were all dreadfully stuffy and awkward. You could do a lot better, but it is good for a few laughs--particularly if you can activate the English captions.

I find myself agreeing with this English reviewer's assessment.( December 24,2006)It really should have had Errol Flynn as Sir Kenneth.He must have been unavailable for any one of a variety of reasons,and Harvey the closest substitute available.LH was capable of some things,and doing them quite well(although, for the life of me, I can't place my finger on a single one of them right at this particular moment.)But, warm, dashing, romantic, swashbuckling,he really was not.And why didn't they find Richard Todd, or Richard Greene, or any one of a number of up and coming young actors in the "bull pen" to perform the role of Sir Kenneth.

King Richard and the Crusaders is an entertaining movie, with plenty of action, nice costumes, some good scenery, and a fast-moving plot. Everything you would normally want from an adventure movie.However, the script is horrible, many of the actors are completely miscast, the actual story is pretty poor, and it has next to nothing to do with the Crusades. It is not Crusaders versus Saracens. It is Good Crusaders and Good Saracens versus Bad Crusaders. Also, they most certainly do not have a cast of thousands, looking like it has a very low budget.As a result, if you are looking for a historically accurate epic about the Third Crusade, you will be disappointed. Although it is not a great movie, it is underrated, being far better than a lot of other adventure movies, and is overall entertaining.If you want to enjoy it, simply do not go into the movie looking for an award winning script and brilliant acting.