Prince Valiant

Meanwhile, back at the Roundtable, Sir Gawain was in a snit. That fresh Viking kid had lit out with Missy Aleta--and after all Gawain had done for the squirt. Well, you know those Vikings, give them a barleycorn and they take a league.

But little did Sir Gawain (played in rancho accents by Sterling Hayden) know that Prince Val had been abducted by vile Viking traitors, the lady Aleta being merely a tasty dividend for the false king Slidor. While Sir Gawain pouted in a brown study Val was clambering about Scandinavian battlements winning back his father's kingdom.

Despite all this scenic Smorgasbord there are only two ways in which you can distinguish Prince Valiant from more familar sagebrush sages. First of all, the savages are Nordies (of sorts) and sport horns in lieu of feathers. In fact, there are horns everywhere. On helmets, as drinking cups and bugles--horns are on everything except the script, which wears a beard. The second distinguishing detail is the frank presentation of propaganda for the Bolivian tin interests. What isn't made of horn in the picture is sure to be tin, including swords, shields, prison bars and armor.

Overlooking Prince Valiant's debt to Hopalong Cassidy, and the shoddy manfuacture of its props--even stone keeps crumble obligingly--the picture is not without a minimum of merit. It has the lovely, if generally untalented, Janet Leigh. Although much too little in view, she does brighten up Camelot considerably. There is also a fine fire at the end that features the burning alive of a few underpaid extras, plus a bit of fancy broadsword play.

As the doughty Val, Robert Wagner is false to Harold Foster's hero. The King Syndicate Viking prince is merely a good natured simpleton, not an active dolt. But if Wagner's poor acting makes Val's claim to the sword Excalibur and a seat at the Round table seem bogus, it also makes one question his right to annoy Miss Leigh and hide her from the camera. This comes of sending a squire to do a knight's job.

With the exception of James Mason, who either has a very strict contract or needs money, the rest of the cast is mostly composed of unemployed wrestlers headed by that Scandinavian rogue Primo Carnera. In all, the picture makes one wish to see Val and his friends in the funny papers, if at all.