THE WAR LORD
When I was twelve years old, I walked out on a movie. It was Wuthering Heights, in its second reissue, at the Park Theater in Painesville, Ohio. I didn't understand it. I am considerably older now, and last night I walked out on my second motion picture. It was Franklin Schaffner's The War Lord. I understood it too well.
There are films that enlighten, that point a moral, that enrich and beguile. There are films that make one think, that tell one something new about the world, that explore a viewpoint fresh and different. There are films that merely entertain. Nothing more is expected of them. But when a film bores, that is the cardinal sin. The War Lord, categorically, is the single most boring film I have ever almost seen.
Almost. This review is being written on half a film. I could not endure sitting through any more of it. As it will be my intention here to convince any reader to avoid this abomination, I will not go into great length, save to explain that the plot concerns an 11th century feudal baron (Charlton Heston) who is awarded a dank and ugly little duchy of swamps and fens on the Normandy coast. He spends half his time fending off the barbarian raiders from across the sea, and the other half trying to roll a local pig-girl in the hay.
It is the most obstinately endless film ever made. It has all the appeal of attendance at a snails' convention. Heston looks ten thousand years old in the roast-beef-red color Universal has filmed him. (One gets the distinct impression Heston makes a film a week; last week I saw him in The Agony and the Ecstasy and he was brilliant.) Here, he is carved from granite, and about as expressive. Circling Heston's Mt. Everest of impassive taciturnity is a sun about to go nova called Richard Boone. The ex-Paladin stalks about muttering tomfoolery in a very Robert Ruark hairy-chested tone of voice, and never cracks a smile. He is so loud and unappealing, in a role of no merit whatsoever, that one wonders why he took the part. The pig-girl is played in truly underwhelming fashion by Miss Rosemary Forsyth, a creature of pale blue eyes and very little visible talent. Even when she is naked.
Maurice Evans is a shock, Guy Stockwell barely manages to survive, the plot is guaranteed to induce tunnelvision and highway fatigue, the camerawork is uninspired, the sets (built on the back lot at Universal for a staggering sum) are ludicrous, and in all it is a classic example of bringing Universal's TV techniques to the big screen. (How long has it been since you saw that faint flickering purple line around an actor, when he stands in front of a process screen?) They attempt to give the impression of a big budget film, with nine horsemen, seven peasants and a horde of pigs. By moving them around and spacing them out, they have cleverly managed to give the impression of a struck set just before the stragglers sign their chits and go home for the day.
It is possible the film gathered steam in the second half and roared on to be one of the great cinematic presentations of our time, but I will never know. When I found myself yawning, spilling popcorn just to have something to do, and praying for the next scene, any scene, I asked myself a question all filmgoers should ask themselves: "Why should I subject myself to this?"
Consistent with the film, I got back an empty answer.
Cinema / December 1965