{{Short description|1961 film by Ferdinando Baldi, Richard Thorpe}} {{Infobox film | name = The Tartars | image = The Tartars (film).jpg | caption = Original [[film poster]] | director = [[Richard Thorpe]] | producer = [[Riccardo Gualino]] | writer = Domenico Salvati<br>Sabatino Ciuffini<br>Oreste Palella<br>Gaio Frattini<br>Ambrogio Molteni<br>Julian De Kassel | based_on = | narrator = | starring = [[Victor Mature]]<br>[[Orson Welles]] | music = [[Renzo Rossellini (composer)|Renzo Rossellini]] | cinematography = [[Amerigo Gengarelli]] | editing = [[Maurizio Lucidi]] | studio = [[Lux Film]] | distributor = [[MGM]] | released = {{Film date|1962|06|20|df=yes}} | runtime = 83 min | country = Italy<br>Yugoslavia | language = English | budget = | gross = $1.1 million (US/Canada)<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/variety-1963-01/page/n69/mode/2up?q=1963|magazine=Variety|date=9 Jan 1963|page=13|title=Big Rental Pictures of 1962}} Please note these are rentals and not gross figures</ref> }} '''''The Tartars'''''/'''''I Tartari''''' is a 1961 Italian-Yugoslavian [[Epic film|epic]] [[Historical drama|historical]] [[Technicolor]] film directed by [[Richard Thorpe]] and starring [[Victor Mature]] and [[Orson Welles]].<ref>[https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/93535 Jeff Stafford, "The Tartars", ''Turner Classic Monthly''] accessed 6 November 2012</ref> It is one of the [[sword-and-sandal]] genre films made in Italy in the 1950s and early 1960s.
==Plot== In what is now Russia, a settlement of [[Vikings]] lives in peace with both the [[Tatars]] and the [[Slavs]]. All is well until Togrul ([[Folco Lulli]]), a Tatar chief seeks the help of Oleg ([[Victor Mature]]), the chief of the Vikings, to war on the Slavs in a surprise attack. Oleg refuses and the group does battle ending with Oleg killing Togrul and abducting Togrul's daughter Samia ([[Bella Cortez]]) as a hostage.
Togrul's brother Burundai ([[Orson Welles]]) is furious and wishes the Viking settlement burnt to the ground. "I am your [[Khan (title)|Khan]]", he says to his troops. His high priest, Ciu Lang ([[Arnoldo Foà]]), reminds Burundai that Samia is promised to the leader of the Tatars as his wife; her safety and return has a higher priority than Burundai's revenge. Burundai gets his chance to retrieve Samia when a Viking [[longship]] is attacked, resulting in the capture of Oleg's wife Helga ([[Liana Orfei]]) and her handmaidens. Burundai initially promises to treat Helga well as an exchange for Samia but tortures Helga's handmaidens to discover the strength of the Vikings. He also rapes Helga and gives her to his men for their further pleasure prior to exchanging her for Samia. Meanwhile, Samia has fallen in love with Oleg's brother Eric ([[Luciano Marin]]).
When Oleg comes to make the exchange and Ciu Lang leads Helga out to the battlements of the Tatar fortress, she leaps down upon seeing Oleg below and is fatally injured. He takes her and Samia back to the Viking settlement, where Helga asks him to kiss her and dies. The grief-stricken Oleg is ready to kill Samia, but Eric reveals that she is pregnant by him and demands to marry her. Oleg has them tried for their lives by the tribal elders. Meanwhile, Ciu Lang counsels Burundai to get Samia back peacefully, but he has megalomaniac dreams of conquering the whole [[Western Russia|West]], and he kills the priest and goes to lead the Tatars to wipe out the Vikings.
At the trial of Eric and Samia, the elders split their votes evenly between acquittal and death, leaving Oleg to cast the deciding vote. Just as he is about to, word comes that Burundai is attacking. He tells Eric to earn the second chance this gives him, organizes the women and children to flee to the Vikings in the mountains, and he and Eric lead the defense of the settlement by the men. The Tatars outnumber them and overwhelm the defenses; Oleg tells Eric to take Samia and go, and Eric rescues her from Tatar soldiers and gets her to a longship. Oleg fights Burundai, throws him into the water and drowns him; as he is saluting Eric and Samia on board their ship, a Tatar spear strikes him and kills him. The longship moves off as the settlement burns.
==Cast== * [[Victor Mature]] as [[Oleg of Kiev|Oleg]] * [[Orson Welles]] as [[Boroldai|Burundai]] * [[Liana Orfei]] as Helga * [[Arnoldo Foà]] as Ciu Lang * [[Luciano Marin]] as Eric * [[Bella Cortez]] as Samia * [[Furio Meniconi]] as Sigrun * [[Folco Lulli]] as Togrul
==Production== Filming took place in Rome and Yugoslavia in October 1960.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Diane Baker Will Co-star With Egan: Wyler's 'Not for Children', Players and Writers Assigned|author=Scheuer, Philip K.|date=Oct 18, 1960|work=Los Angeles Times|page=C9}}</ref> It was filmed using Italian [[List of anamorphic format trade names|Totalscope]] anamorphic lenses.<ref>Film credits.</ref>
According to Orson Welles, the extended sword fight between Welles and Mature "on which I worked day after day" was shot with no input from Mature.<ref name="peter"/>
==Release== MGM issued the film on a double bill with ''[[Ride the High Country]]'' with ''The Tartars'' on the top of the bill.<ref>{{cite book|page=218|url=https://archive.org/details/iftheymovekillem0000wedd/page/218/mode/2up?q=%22the+tartars%22|title= If they move-- kill 'em! : the life and times of Sam Peckinpah|last=Weddle|first= David|year=1994|publisher=Grove Press | isbn=9780802115461 }}</ref>
==Reception== ===Box office=== Orson Welles told [[Peter Bogdanovich]] the film "made a lot of money – it got back its cost in New York alone... a perfectly legible drive in kind of movie."<ref name="peter">{{cite book|page=266|title= This is Orson Welles|last=Welles|first= Orson|year=1993 }}</ref>
According to MGM records the film made a profit of $34,000.<ref name="Mannix">{{Citation | title = The Eddie Mannix Ledger | publisher = Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study | place = Los Angeles}}.</ref>
===Critical=== ''Variety'' called it an "unsatisfactory exploitation meller".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/variety-1962-06/page/78/mode/1up?q=%22the+tartars%22+%22victor+mature%22+%22orson+welles%22|magazine=Variety|title=The Tartars|page=6|date=27 June 1962}}</ref>
Orson Welles' enunciation has been praised while Victor Mature has been considered a miscast for not having the looks of an archetypal Viking.<ref>Hughes, p.34</ref> Critic [[Leonard Maltin]] calls the film "a routine spectacle", giving it 2 stars out of four.<ref>{{cite book|author=Leonard Maltin|title=Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sfw2AgAAQBAJ|date=3 September 2013|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-101-60955-2}}</ref>
==Biography== * {{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Howard|title=Cinema Italiano – The Complete Guide From Classics To Cult|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=2011|isbn=978-1-84885-608-0 |location=London – New York}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb title|0056558}} * {{TCMDb title|92369}}
{{Richard Thorpe}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tartars}} [[Category:Yugoslav adventure films]] [[Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films]] [[Category:1961 films]] [[Category:1961 English-language films]] [[Category:English-language Italian films]] [[Category:English-language Yugoslav films]] [[Category:Fictional Vikings]] [[Category:Films based on European myths and legends]] [[Category:Films directed by Richard Thorpe]] [[Category:Films set in the Viking Age]] [[Category:Italian epic films]] [[Category:Historical epic films]] [[Category:Lux Film films]] [[Category:1961 historical films]] [[Category:Italian historical films]] [[Category:Films set in Russia]] [[Category:Films scored by Renzo Rossellini]] [[Category:1961 Italian films]] [[Category:English-language historical films]]