Starring: Don Murray. Carita, Donald Houston, Andrew Keir

Directed by: Don Chaffey    Written by: Clarke Reynolds, John Temple-Smith   

The Story: Crap. I really wanted to sink my infernal teeth into some real good Sword and Sandals type meat for the Rogues Review. And I thought this flick would be ideal. silly me....My luck just ain't that good. Curse you, Sun Coast Video for not having Time Barbarian! I saw that movie on VHS years ago and its what I was searching for. I didn't find it, obviously, but I found this movie. Cest la vie.

Way back in the old days...I mean the really old days....Rome ruled the world. not like now, where they do it from the Vatican, but back when Roman Legions used to kick ass and take names...is when our movie takes place. Rome has conquered England and a peaceful settlement is in the making. England back then is made up of a bunch of kingdoms, and the ruler of one of them would spare his people the wrath of Rome by dealing with them. But he's on his deathbed and leaves one of his daughters, Salina in charge. The roman General-Governor, Justinian is one of Salina's biggest fans. So big in fact that they fall in love. This is after Justinian stops his second in command, Octavian from disrupting a Druid funeral for the dead king. You see, even though Justinian forbade the Britons to practice their pagan beliefs publicly, Salina has this druid funeral performed privately. A small matter of words, that Justinian lets her get away with.

Such slyness doesn't escape jealous Octavian. He feels he should be General of the troops in the British isles, not Justinian and can barely contain himself about it. So he concocts a plan. all evil second in commands do, if you didn't know that. Salina and Justinian want to be married, but the chief druid, Maelgan refuses to marry them. Maelgan has prophesied that Salina will wear armor and fight the Romans and I guess he doesn't like to be wrong. It also helps that Octavian has a few rich merchants in his pocket. The merchants are pissed off because Justinian has raised their taxes. They'd be happier if Octavian were in charge. Justinian is a pretty fair guy. He doesn't want to crush the Britons now that they are ruled from Rome. He wants to forge a peaceful coexistence. But Octavian simply wants to beat the crap out of the upstart Britons and take stuff. The merchants decide to help Octavian because they know they'll make more money that way.

The plan is simple. They'll stage a fake uprising in a nearby settlement drawing Octavian and his troops away. Then they'll stage another fake uprising further away and Justinian will have to go since Octavian is gone. While Justinian is marching with his troops Octavian and his men will return and take over in Justinian's absence. Simple but effective,. As soon as Octavian has the reigns of power he starts getting medieval on asses and Salina gets pissed off. After all, Octavian doesn't respect her royal court and pretty much tortures and kills her family her friends. Thus the prophecy turns true as Salina dons armor and leads her people into a fight to rid themselves of the Romans. By the time Justinian finds out what has happened and returns its too late. He has a full scale war on his hands...and Salina, his lover, tells him its too late to stop it.

That's the movie in a nutshell and lemme tell ya, droogs, its a let down. There are some cool scenes, but its not all that good. First of all, the fight scenes are good enough, but for some reason the love story between Justinian and Salina didn't carry much weight. You can't quite connect with the characters enough to give a good gosh damn. And when the big battle at the end occurs you only want it to be over with so you can see what happens next. Only nothing happens next. Justinian beats the Britons with surprisingly simple plan and Salina dies! Not that I have to a happy ending to every movie....I don't...but this ending seemed to be tacked on as if the film makers were trying to just get it over with.

The actress that played Salina was named Carita and according to the IMDb  this was her only movie. I can't figure out why because she wasn't that bad and she's certainly good looking. The rest of the cast didn't mean much to my Infernal Eyes except for Patrick Troughton as the Briton Tristam. Troughton was the second man to play Doctor Who in the beloved sci-fi series. Don Murray was Justinian.

now, I'm not an expert in European history but will someone please tell me why this movie was called Viking Queen when there's no f***ing Vikings in it?

Best Lines: "Because you'll knock us about if we don't?" - An old farmer who can't pay his taxes answers the Roman question of why taxes must be paid.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) If Salina wanted a druidic funeral for her dad, despite roman edict against it she should have told the assembled pagans to not shout "Zeus! Zeus!" at the top of their lungs. With all the racket they were making they might as well have just invited the Romans to slaughter them after the ceremony!

2.) Hey, wait a cotton-pickin' minute! The Druids were shouting "Zeus!"? I thought Zeus was a GREEK god! Why the hell are druids in England worshipping Zeus? And why is this movie called Viking Queen? I thought Vikings were from...ummm...oh...Viking Land! (Norway? Hell, I don't know where Vikings are from...sue me, I'm no historian...but I'm 99% sure that Vikings weren't from England!) Well, the gaps in my knowledge are at least not as wide as the writer of this movie. I would have at least tried to find the name of a Druidic deity.

3.) F***ing Romans! Now I know why I have to pay all those tolls on the Garden State parkway! Its a roman custom! Justinian raises the taxes on Merchants to cover the costs of building the roads protecting travelers from bandits and other services the Romans provide! So now I know why I have to keep a butt load of quarters in my ashtray for tollbooths when I travel....the fault falls on great Caesar's Ghost.

4.) Good thing the roman soldiers didn't do anything dangerous, like, I dunno...fight back...when Salina attacks with her chariots the first time.

5.) The Nubian slave girl looks suspiciously like a white chick in blackface. I know this flick was made in the 60's but am I the only one to take offense to that?

Nudity and Sex: Close to nudity in some scenes but no total nudity is seen.

Huh?:

Why is Salina the only Briton with a strange, distinctive, but definitely non-British sounding accent?

I'm not up on my ancient roman military policies, but if Justinian didn't trust Octavian why even have him around? Couldn't he just dismiss him from his post and send him back to Rome? Or take his authority to command away so he'd be less of a threat? If a military General didn't have that power than I can't see how the Romans could even function in ancient days as a dominant force. Sh!t, Justinian could have just done it the Klingon way and killed Octavian when no one was looking.

The prophecy said that Salina would wear armor and fight for her people, but it didn't specify form fitting armor that made her look sexy. Heck, it didn't say anything about the makeup and hairdos that she and the other female warriors got before going into battle. What's the point in getting all gussied up if you're going to war?

That fat merchant dude is one of the butt-ugliest fellas I've ever seen.

The Final Judgment: Its a big let down, this movie. There's no real high points to anything and no reason to see it unless you want to point out the things wrong with it. Too bad. I really thought it would at least be a decent time waster. Unfortunately its not and I can only recommend it to Hammer completists. The Infernal Popcorn Eaters give it two devil heads.