The Crusades (1935)

Director:

Cecil B. DeMille

Writers:

Harold Lamb (screenplay) &
Waldemar Young (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

25 October 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | War

Tagline:

Wonders to dazzle the human imagination - in a flaming love story set in titanic world conflict!

Plot:

King Richard and the Third Crusade (1190-1192) are given the DeMille treatment with more spectacle than history.

Plot Keywords:

Crusades | Attack | Spectacle | France | Jerusalem

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Loretta Young	...	Berengaria, Princess of Navarre
Henry Wilcoxon	...	Richard, King of England
Ian Keith	...	Saladin, Sultan of Islam
C. Aubrey Smith	...	The Hermit
Katherine DeMille	...	Alice, Princess of France (as Katherine De Mille)
Joseph Schildkraut	...	Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat
Alan Hale	...	Blondel - Troubadour
C. Henry Gordon	...	Philip the Second, King of France
George Barbier	...	Sancho, King of Navarre
Montagu Love	...	The Blacksmith - Hercules
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

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #859) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Stuntman Jack Montgomery, who played a Christian cavalryman in the film, recalled in an interview the tension that existed between director Cecil B. DeMille and the dozens of stuntmen hired to do the battle scenes. The stuntmen resented what they saw as DeMille's cavalier attitude about safety, especially as several stuntmen had been injured, and several horses had been killed, because of what the stuntmen perceived as DeMille's indifference. At one point DeMille was standing on the parapets of the castle, yelling through his megaphone at the "combatants" gathered below. One of them, who had been hired for his expertise at archery, finally tired of DeMille's screaming at them, notched an arrow into his bow and fired it at DeMille's megaphone, the arrow embedding itself into the megaphone just inches from DeMille's head. DeMille quickly left the set and didn't come back for the rest of the day. For the rest of the picture, he never yelled at the stuntmen again.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Richard the Lionheart wears a wristwatch.

Quotes:

Berengaria, Princess of Navarre: We've been blind. We were proud dearest when we took the cross in our pride, we fought to conquer Jerusalem. We tried to ride through blood to the Holy Place of God. And now... now we suffer.
Saladin, Sultan of Islam: The Holy City of Allah.
Berengaria, Princess of Navarre: What if we call him Allah or God? Shall men fight because they travel different roads to him? There is only one God.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Costume Designer (1950)

Soundtrack:

Richard Ruled in England

Historical Spectacle - DeMille Style

A playboy king & a beautiful princess. A holy hermit & a sacred mission. Intrigue & romance & sin & spectacle. In fact, another Cecil B. DeMille history lesson.

This time, DeMille takes on THE CRUSADES, a highly complex military & political enterprise that actually played out over 200 years. He focuses on one episode: The Third Crusade & England's King Richard the Lionheart's thrust to claim Jerusalem & the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks in 1188-1192. Interestingly enough, DeMille gets a lot of his historical facts correct, but he does spend quite a bit of time detailing Richard's lustful, wanton ways.

Literature & film have tended to wildly romanticize Richard. In historical fact, he was a bad king interested primarily in his own glory. He spent only 6 months of his reign in Britain, he bankrupted the Treasury with his Crusading schemes and he abandoned his young wife. But such is the power of Romance that he is generally seen as the beau ideal of kingliness.

Henry Wilcoxon is a good, sturdy, if unspectacular, Richard. Loretta Young is beautiful, as always, as the Princess he marries. Sir C. Aubrey Smith is magnificent as the Holy Hermit who is the spiritual leader of the Crusade. Others in the fine cast are Alan Hale, Joseph Schildkraut, Mischa Auer & John Carradine (pay close attention to find him).

As a master of spectacle, DeMille really comes through towards the end of the film with the siege & capture of Acre (north of present day Haifa in Israel).All the stops are pulled out to show the full panoply & horror of mediaeval battle.