The Tartars

Vintage Orson Welles
Warner Archives has just released the first Region 1 DVD transfer of 1961's "The Tartars", filmed in Technicolor in Italy and Yugoslavia. An obvious European production, MGM's Richard Thorpe directs Orson Welles and Victor Mature in a battling opus that fizzles kind-a-quickly. "The Tartars" is set in the Russian steppes around 900 A.D.. Viking Prince Oleg is asked to join the Mongol horde and help destroy the Slavic tribes. Oleg refuses and war breaks out. The Tartar chieftan vows to avenge his brothers' death, which occurs, and more bloodshed begins. A criss-cross series of bloody battles and raging horse-charges leaves the viewer wondering who's army is on the screen at any point in time? The Vikings or the Tartars? "The Tartars" lists Victor Mature as first-billed; a successful actor for 20 years, Mature over-acts and hams through every scene. Long-shots of Mature clearly reveal looping and dubbing for him by another actor. Obviously bored, Orson Welles mumbles through his lines...

A Viking and Moors Sixties Bash
Warner Archive has finally released an epic film which has gotten sporadic showings on Turner Classic Movies, Director Richard Thorpe's 'THE TARTARS' aka 'I TARTARI'-1961, an Italian/American co-production also co-directed but not credited by Director Ferdinando Baldi made at the height of the sword and sandal craze and unquestionably lost in the shuffle because of that. It is one of Victor Mature's last epic stints and was maybe a bit too old for the role of Oleg, the Viking chieftain . Orson Welles as the Tartar Khan, Burundai is just required to leer and smirk but his voice carries the villainy. The film is bogged down with a soap opera plot by having the Vikings capture Burundai's niece Samia and in turn the Moors capture Oleg's wife Helga. In a shocking scene, Helga is thrown off the castle walls to her death and causes the tide to turn into a climactic battle to the final fade out. Director Thorpe who was one of MGM's top action directors in the fifties with credits such...

Great film of it's genre
I remember going to the theatre to see "The Tartars" when it was first released. I liked it then and I still like it now. So happy that Warner Archives is releasing these films from my younger years!

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