Ivanhoe

I mentioned yesterday that TCM would have two movies showing on April 30 that were on my DVR but that I hadn't blogged about before. The second of them is the 1952 adaptation of Ivanhoe, which shows up at 11:45 AM.

I haven't read Walter Scott's book on which this movie is based, so I can't say anything on how different the movie is. In any case, it starts off at the end of the 12th century. If you remember The Adventures of Robin Hood, you'll recall that English king Richard the Lionhearted went off to fight in one of the Crusades, only to be captured on the way home by Leopold of Austria and held for ransom. As the movie opens, a man looking like one of the old troubadours is riding his horse past various castles, singing a song in English. Eventually, at one of the castles, the man gets a response, followed by a small bag being thrown from a window high up. The man who threw the bag is Richard, as you can tell by the three lions crest on the bag, which contains a letter stating that he's being held for ransom, and that his brother John (Guy Rolfe) is aware of this and deliberately not paying the ransom.

The man who's been riding arouind looking for Richard is Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor), and he returns to England. However, there are all sorts of problems for him in England. One is that he's a Saxon, and the English monarchy are all Normans, descended from the invaders of 125 years prior. Prince John has been brutal in his desire to make the Saxons bend the knee to him, while Richard was more conciliatory about wanting to bring everyone together. It's because of this that Wilfrid's father Cedric (Finlay Currie) has disowned him for going off on a Crusade with those nasty Normans. But Wilfrid wants to see Cedric's ward Rowena (Joan Fontaine), with whom he has been in love. So when the unrecognized Wilfrid as troubadour runs into a group of Norman knights who are in Sherwood forest looking for a place to spend the night, Wilfrid directs them to his father's place nearby.

Wilfrid hides from his father, anad at the house one other guest shows up. Isaac (Felix Aylmer) is a Jew, having been forced to flee from Spain because the Jews are being persecuted pretty much all over Europe, much like they are even today for not willing to let Hamas extirpate them. Isaac meets Wilfrid, who tells him about Richard's captivity, and gives Isaac an assurance that Richard will let Jews in England live in peace. So Isaac takes Wilfred back to his place, Wilfrid bringing a jester he liberated, Wamba (Emlyn Williams) along in exchage for making Wamba a squire.

Isaac has a very lovely daughter, Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor). Neither of them has anything close to the wealth needed to pay Richard's ransom, but Rebecca does have a way to help Wilfrid. Prince John wants a series of jousts in which the Normans will best the Saxons, thereby finally subjugating them. Wilfrid is the one Saxon who could beat them, but he doesn't have a suitable jousting horse or suit of chain mail. Rebecca has the wealth at least to purchase those. She falls in love with Wilfrid, but of course he's a Gentile, and is already in love with Rowena anyway.

Wilfrid does best the Normans, but picks up a fairly serious injury in the process. He also gains an enemy in Norman knight De Bois-Guilbert (George Sanders), who vows to destroy the Saxons once and for all, and that's what the rest of the movie is about.

Ivanhoe is the sort of literary adaptation MGM was generally pretty good at making, combined with vibrant Technicolor and location shooting in the British Isles. Robert Taylor isn't a particular favorite of mine, but once again he gives a professional performance, as do Elizabeth Taylor and the underused Joan Fontaine. George Sanders gets to play another of his villain roles, and the British supporting cast is uniformly good. The story is a rousing one, full of action and easy to follow.

Ivanhoe may not be as good as Warner Bros.' The Adventures of Robin Hood, but not a whole lot of films are. It's eminently watchable in its own right, however.