The first part of the film is excellent with only credits to the sustained grand cinematography with constantly impressing settings and great acting, showing all the best of what made Cecil B. DeMille the greatest director of epics in Hollywood. The second part is ridiculous, a very liberal rewriting of history, the script writers using it lavishly to construe their own fancies, resulting in a monumental soap opera. Loretta Young is the star of the film, constantly bewitching as Berengaria, and actually living up to her real legendary beauty - her beautiful legendary hair, very much emhanced in the film, has sometimes been confused with the constellation "Berenice's hair", while Berengaria couldn't have been far from it. Henry Wilcoxon also makes a Richard Lionheart with credibility enough, he actually was like that in reality, outragesously insolent, politically impossible for his lack of realism and reliability, a great romantic but no good as a husband, and a hopelessly foolhardy daredevil. Here of course he is made more ideal, as Hollywood always did in the 30s, and you forgive the gross distortions of history in the second part because of his charming chivalry. The film is good but not one of DeMille's best, but it is impressing enough, and the first part, until the ridiculous Saladin-Berengaria affair gets started, is among the best of DeMille's works.
Review of The Crusades
