The Crusades

1935

2h 5m

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

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Adventure

Drama

History

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King Richard the Lionhearted launches a crusade to preserve Christianity in Jerusalem.

Directors

Cecil B. DeMille

Writers

Harold Lamb(lyricist by)

Leo Robin(lyricist by)

Waldemar Young(screenplay by)

Stars

Loretta Young

Henry Wilcoxon

Ian Keith

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Top cast

Loretta Young

Berengaria, Princess of Navarre

Henry Wilcoxon

Richard, King of England

Ian Keith

Saladin

C. Aubrey Smith

The Hermit

Katherine DeMille

Alice, Princess of France

Joseph Schildkraut

Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat

Alan Hale

Blondel

C. Henry Gordon

Philip the Second, King of France

George Barbier

Sancho, King of Navarre

Montagu Love

The Blacksmith

Ramsay Hill

John, Prince of England

Lumsden Hare

Robert, Earl of Leicester

Maurice Murphy

Alan, Richard's Squire

William Farnum

Hugo, Duke of Burgundy

Hobart Bosworth

Frederick, Duke of the Germans

Pedro de Cordoba

Karakush

Mischa Auer

Monk

Albert Conti

Leopold, Duke of Austria

Directors

Cecil B. DeMille

Writers

Harold Lamb(lyricist by)

Leo Robin(lyricist by)

Waldemar Young(screenplay by)

All cast & crew

Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

It's probably best to start off by saying that this is most certainly not an history lesson. Cecil B. De Mille has used the third crusade as little more than a template for his grand-scale story of Richard the Lion-heart (an efficient Henry Wilcoxon) as he capitalises on this holy quest as an excuse to avoid marrying the ambitious Princess Alice (Katherine de Mille), sister to co-crusader Philip II of France (C. Henry Gordon). En route to Jerusalem, they must provision in Navarre where the shrewd King Sancho (a rather fun George Barbier) sees an opportunity to offload his beautiful daughter Berengaria (Loretta Young) in return for victualling the army... We know that Richard and Berengaria were really in love, and for the rest of the film De Mille sticks to the script - but that's what rather drags it down. There are plenty of exciting siege and battle scenes around the city of Acre as the Christians attempt to reverse the Saracen battle spoils of the great Saladin (an effectively cast Ian Keith), but each time we return to the smouldering Young and her Rapunzel-like locks - whom, by now, is the object of both men's obsession The director is in his element with the big, set-piece action scenes and the photography from Victor Milner (who also did "Cleopatra" (1934) with de Mille) adds much to the epic-style look of the film, but Wilcoxon and Young don't really present us with an engaging pairing; and any sense of duplicity - particularly involving the conspiring French, is left too peripheral to the smouldering romance to make this as good as it could have been... There is a sterling performance from C. Aubrey Smith as the holy man, released at the beginning by Saladin and who goes on to mobilise the Christian armies to challenge the Islamic horde; and Alan Hale is quite effective in the role of the minstrel. Overall, I really enjoy these derring-do, heroic, adventure films and I did enjoy this - it's just that it could have been more rousing and less of a love story.

Geronimo196719 Jun, 2022