[Regia-NA] Film "The Vikings" trivia.

[Kim Siddorn]

Useless things to know about The Vikings
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            Trivia for
            The Vikings (1958)
              a.. At the end of the film, a Viking ship is set afire by
flaming arrows in a rendering of a traditional Viking funeral. Director
Richard Fleischer took great care to have the archers practice the moment,
training them to release the arrows on the count of "three," and hoping at
least some of the arrows would arc properly to hit the sail of the ship and
set it on fire. When the time came for the live shot, the director only
reached the count of "two", when one over-eager archer loosed his arrow. As
luck would have it, the arrow arced perfectly and hit the sail. Then,
Fleischer called, "Three!" and the other archers loosed their arrows.
Fleischer decided that he liked the one, single arrow being launched first,
and kept the shot in the film because it looked like part of the ceremony.


              b.. The three Viking ships in the film were designed using
blueprints for an actual Viking ship salvaged from the water and restored by
a Viking museum in Norway. It turned out that the boats built for the film
were too accurate, because the modern actors were taller than their
historical counterparts. Every other oar hole had to be plugged so the
modern men would have room to row with a full oar stroke. Otherwise, they
would hit the backs of the oarsmen seated in front of them when pushing the
oar handles forward to start each new stroke.





Regards,

Kim Siddorn