Ivanhoe (1952)

Ivanhoe
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Written by Noel Langley and Marguerite Roberts; adapted by Aeneas MacKenzie from the novel by Sir Walter Scott
1952/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

Ivanhoe: I Wilfred of Ivanhoe, do challenge the judgment of this tribunal. In the name of the accused, I demand that her guilt or innocence be determined in the eyes of God by wager of battle.

This has all the makings of a blockbuster – big stars, pageantry, and mortal knightly combat with a love triangle thrown in for good measure.  If you like that kind of thing, this may be for you.

Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) is a Saxon knight who followed King Richard on his Crusade to Jerusalem.  King Richard is being held hostage in Austria and Ivanhoe returns home to England to raise the ransom.  His first stop is his father’s house.  His father Cedric (Finlay Currie), though a loyal Saxon, has disowned him for disobedience in following Richard and shows no signs of softening.  Ivanhoe and Cedric’s ward Lady Rowena (Joan Fontaine) have pledged eternal love.  When he departs on his continued fund-raising quest, Ivanhoe takes his father’s jester-slave Wamba (Emelyn Williams) with him.

Ivanhoe rescues the Jewish moneylender Isaac from the Normans and asks him for the money.  He promises that when Richard regains his throne he will help Isaac’s people. Issac has no money to spare at the moment.  His daughter Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor) spots the gallant night and is moved to give him her mother’s jewels so that he can buy armor and a warhorse for use in a tournament against the Norman foe.

Ivanhoe is wounded in the tournament and both Rowena and Rebecca run to his side.  Rebecca admits she loves Ivanhoe but Rowena reluctantly allows the girl, who learned the healing arts from her mother who was burned at the stake as a witch, to nurse him back to health.

To cut to the chase, eventually all these people are captured by Normans.  Norman knight DeBois-Guilbert (George Sanders) falls madly in love with Rebecca who spurns him. There is a battle during which Ivanhoe escapes.  However, he returns to rescue Rebecca, who is being tried for witchcraft, by volunteering to fight for her innocence in another tournament.

My faithful readers will already know that grand spectacles generally fail to excite me much.  This is a fine example of the genre, I suppose.  The acting is all very sincere and the pageantry is suitably splendid. I’ve never read Ivanhoe so was surprised to find out that this story is basically the chivalric half of the same basic events that surround the story of Robin Hood.  The Errol Flynn movie has much more humor and is incomparably better.

Ivanhoe was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Color and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer