Ivanhoe (1952)

A knight seeks to free the captive King Richard and put him back on the throne.

Director:

Richard Thorpe

Writers:

Noel Langley (screenplay), Æneas MacKenzie (adaptation)

Stars:

Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Taylor	...	Ivanhoe
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Rebecca
Joan Fontaine	...	Rowena
George Sanders	...	De Bois-Guilbert
Emlyn Williams	...	Wamba
Robert Douglas	...	Sir Hugh De Bracy
Finlay Currie	...	Cedric
Felix Aylmer	...	Isaac
Francis De Wolff	...	Front De Boeuf (as Francis DeWolff)
Norman Wooland	...	King Richard
Basil Sydney	...	Waldemar Fitzurse
Harold Warrender	...	Locksley
Patrick Holt	...	Philip DeMalvoisin
Roderick Lovell	...	Ralph DeVipont
Sebastian Cabot	...	Clerk of Copmanhurst

Storyline

In the center of this Walter Scott classic fiction inspired movie the chivalrousness and the daring stand. Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor), the disowned knight join to the bravehearted and high-minded Robin of Locksley (Harold Warrender), the valiant of Sherwood Forest. They want King Richard (Norman Wooland) to rule the kingdom instead of evil Prince John (Guy Rolfe).

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Plot Keywords:

title same as book | character name as title | ivanhoe character | dog | yorkshire england | 

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Taglines:

At last on the screen ! Biggest spectacle since Quo Vadis.

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | History | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Did You Know?

Trivia

This movie began as an MGM project in 1935 with Fredric March to play Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Loretta Young as Lady Rowena, and Gary Cooper as King Richard I. After a period of "adjustment", it was then scheduled for 1938 release, with Robert Taylor as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Myrna Loy as Lady Rowena, and Clark Gable as King Richard. It was to have been shot in Britain, but rising hostilities in Europe that culminated in World War II caused the movie to be put on hold. In 1946, Æneas MacKenzie, who wrote the final draft of the script, wrote a series of drafts for Paramount Pictures that involved the Saxon knight Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe returning from the Crusades to raise a ransom for the kidnapped King Richard, only to discover that the Norman Prince John had taken the throne in his absence. In those drafts, Isaac of York took on an even greater role than in the novel and the final draft, where he personally provided Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe with the entire ransom to free King Richard. As thanks, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe offered to make all Jews in England free to "worship unmolested in their own faith". These drafts also revised the love triangle amongst Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Lady Rowena, and Rebecca by eliminating Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena's romantic love, and making Lady Rowena his half-sister, and the ending would have involved Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Rebecca marrying with a Jewish wedding and, later, a Christian wedding under a "Jewish canopy", where Lady Rowena would have also wed outside of her ethnic background by marrying a Norman nobleman. The final draft kept Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena together and Rebecca alone.

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Goofs

The opening credits feature a coat of arms of England supported on the dexter by a lion and an unicorn on the sinister. The unicorn from the arms of Scotland did not appear as a supporter of the arms of England until 1603, when the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united under King James I of England and VI of Scotland.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: In the 12th century, at the close of the third crusade to free the Holy Land, the Saxon knight called Wilfred of Ivanhoe undertook a private crusade of his own. England's warrior king Richard the Lionhearted had disappeared during his homeward march, vanishing without trace. His disappearance dealt a cruel blow to his unhappy country, already in turmoil from the bitter conflict between Saxons and Normans. And in time, most of his subjects came to mourn him as dead. But Ivanhoe's ...

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Connections

Referenced in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)

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Soundtracks

The Song of Ivanhoe
(1952) (uncredited)
Music by Miklós Rózsa
Lyrics by Marguerite Roberts
Sung by Robert Taylor and Norman Wooland

User Reviews

A short anecdote on the making of this film

It was in this film that the legendary stuntman, Paddy Ryan, did a spectacular fall into an amazingly small amount of water. I started working in the UK in 1960 and there was still talk among casts and crews of Paddy's famous fall. I met Paddy a few times and asked him about the stunt dive. He said it was no big deal. He remembered being asked by some publicist why he did such dangerous things. He replied that he looked down from the great height, imagined he saw his pay check lying there, and took off! I suggested that he should write his memoirs. He said he had started and had spent a long time writing it all out by hand and had almost finished when his manuscript was stolen from, if I remember correctly, his car. He said he was too fed up to sit down and do it all again. What a loss!

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 February 1953 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe

Filming Locations:

MGM British Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$3,842,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1