Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Films based on books provide reviewers with introductions that practically write themselves. We feel obliged to say whether the film is better or worse than the book, sometimes even when we haven't read the book (and occasionally, I imagine, when we fell asleep during the film). Although I read Ivanhoe as a boy (who could resist a book about knights that sounds as if it stars a Russian farm implement?), I cannot fairly compare the book to the film because I had to see the film in order to discover that I had almost entirely forgotten the book.

I do not think the book could possibly have been as dull as the film--not unless Sir Walter Scott really is as insipid as Mark Twain says he is. Certainly the book could not have started with the singing of Robert Taylor, who plays an intensely--even irksomely--loyal Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

Ivanhoe is a knight in search of King Richard the Lion-Hearted, who was on his way back to England from the Crusades when he disappeared. Although we quickly learn that Richard was imprisoned and held for ransom by an Austrian nobleman, it seems that in all of England, only Ivanhoe believes that King Richard still lives; for Richard's brother John, who likes ruling in Richard's absence, refuses to pay the ransom and spreads the rumor that Richard has been killed.

Ivanhoe's solution is to wander the European countryside in search of his king while singing an offensively unmelodic little ditty that he knows the king will respond to. The song features such lines as "I vowed me a vow," and has the effect of forcing the viewer to wish the ridiculously loyal Ivanhoe luck in his search so that he can stop singing.

When his song is finally answered by a voice from a tower--a voice that he recognizes as that of the king--he waits for a message to be thrown down from the window. The king flings him a letter in a pouch bearing his seal that is written in--get this--Austrian. Having found his king, Ivanhoe must now search the countryside for someone who speaks "Austrian." I'm no linguist, but I suspect that this second quest should have been a little more difficult than the film made it out to be.

In the letter, Richard accuses his brother of disregarding the ransom letter and of having corrupted a group of Norman knights. The fact that the corrupt knights are Norman goes to the heart of the film, which concerns the valor of the Normans as compared to the Saxons. Ivanhoe is a Saxon who supports Richard (a Norman king) for reasons that are never entirely made clear. Apparently all that Richard is good for is 1) bankrupting the treasury by fighting losing campaigns for the Holy Land; 2) getting captured by Austrians; and 3) failing to figure out a way to make his brother honor his ransom, choosing instead to wait helplessly in a tower for Ivanhoe to come to his rescue, just like the princess in the early Mario Brothers video games before she wised up in Mario 3 and decided to take matters into her own hands.

Like his brother Richard, King John is also a Norman. But he's the nasty evil kind, the kind that makes Ivanhoe's skin crawl. John is supported by such Norman knights as deBrassie and Bois-Gilbert, who were defeated by Ivanhoe on the field at Aker, back when the English knights apparently took to fighting each other because they knew they couldn't win against the Muslims.

I am tempted to continue to summarize the plot because that is all there is in the film. It's impossible to talk about characters because there are no characters, only stick figures who advance the plot. And it's impossible to talk about dialogue because there is no dialogue, only running commentary on the plot.

I can talk about Elizabeth Taylor, who plays the beautiful daughter of a Jewish banker. No doubt she is beautiful as far as bankers' daughters go, but she is not beautiful by the standards that Taylor would later set. She is too thin in this film (made in 1952), not yet the voluptuous beauty whose every filled-out limb would radiate decadence and hedonism by the end of the 50s.

For reasons that are for the most part intelligible (if uncompelling), all of the major characters in the film scurry about and hide from each other and lie to one another before the final battle, which is extremely difficult to understand. If you were in a tank and someone started shooting at the tank with a BB gun, I think your obvious response would be to strip down naked and leave the dangerous confines of the tank to charge the person with the gun; after all, you have to give the guy with the BB gun a chance.

At least, that's the way the evil minions of King John feel when their stone castle is attacked by archers. Instead of staying inside the castle and ignoring the archers, they decide to run around on the ramparts, exposing themselves to volleys of arrows so that there can be lots of confusion and bloodshed. Somewhere in the confusion, Ivanhoe, who has surrendered himself to Bois-Gilbert, starts a fire in a stone-walled dungeon. But it spreads--you know, like fire does, through osmosis--and eventually breaks out anywhere in the castle that there is so much as a stick of wood. You might think that the archers would have used some flaming arrows, but you'll understand why that would have been a bad idea when you see them shooting their arrows, which, more often than not, land in the grass about a meter or so in front of the klutzes who fired them.

Though Ivanhoe is able to save his lady (a Saxon queen) and to capture her captor (deBrassie), Bois-Giblert escapes the castle on horseback with Rebekah (Elizabeth Taylor). This leads to an extremely unsatisfying denouement involving accusations of witchcraft and trial by combat. Ivanhoe volunteers himself as Rebekah's champion in order to prove, before the eyes of God, that she is not a witch. Nasty King John forces Gilbert (who has fallen in love with Rebekah because he knows she's going to put on a few pounds and become the most beautiful woman in the history of the world) to be the champion of the court. If Ivanhoe wins, Rebekah lives. If Bois-Gilbert wins, she will be burned as a witch (and the locals will promptly build a bridge out of her).

Just before the battle, Bois-Gilbert offers to concede defeat--to be stigmatized by all knights as a coward--if only Rebekah will turn her affections from Ivanhoe to him. He doesn't ask for her hand in marriage; he asks only that she rate him higher as her knight than Ivanhoe, who has already indicated his interest in the Saxon queen. By spurning Ivanhoe before the fight, she can guarantee her own safety--and that of both champions as well. But she chooses to let them fight so that can spurn Ivanhoe afterwards.

And then, before we have a chance to hiss her, Richard shows up, having been ransomed by Rebekah's father.

If you make it to the end, you can roll your eyes and say, "Puh-lease!" all you want. You'll only have yourself to blame. I warned you.




Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4