Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Erik the Conqueror Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 7, 2017

Mention the name of Mario Bava to most casual filmgoers and if they’ve heard of him at all they will probably tend to think only of Bava’s contributions to the giallo genre with such now iconic films as The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace. But even a cursory glance over Bava’s rather long and varied film career proves that he was no mere (one) genre stalwart, having either directed, co-directed or provided some sort of technical assist on a huge array of films in any number of idioms, with entries as varied as Caltiki, the Immortal Monster, Planet of the Vampires, Hercules Unchained, Diabolik and Roy Colt and Winchester Jack. While it’s true that Bava fairly regularly went to the science fiction and/or horror wells, there’s another intriguing subgenre, albeit relatively small and short lived, in Bava’s career: movies about Vikings. Bava received no official credit for 1961’s The Last of the Vikings, though scuttlebutt has long implied he had at least a hand in directing it, but he’s front and center, with appropriate billing in the credits, in another 1961 opus dealing with Vikings, Erik the Conqueror, released under a number of different titles including Gli invasori. As Bava expert Tim Lucas perhaps unnecessarily points out in his engaging commentary included on this Blu-ray, it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to see parallels between this film and Richard Fleischer’s similar (some might say extremely similar) 1958 film The Vikings. Once again battles between the English and Vikings predominate, and also as with the previous film the plot hinges on siblings who may initially at least not be aware of their relationship.

As Lucas also mentions in his commentary, Erik the Conqueror follows in longstanding Italian sword and sandal tradition by beginning things with a chaotic battle that shows hordes of soldiers, as well as what appear to be at least some innocent bystanders, meeting their gruesome fates. There’s a truly disturbing scene showing two small boys who are being ushered away from the main locus of the battle by an adult, with the adult only to be killed himself. Those boys turn out to be brothers, sons of the slain Viking king, who are soon separated, one be taken in by the English queen and the other being raised by his native Viking clan. While The Vikings may be the most obvious cinematic precedent for Erik the Conqueror, the fact that an “enemy” female royal, in this case the lonesome and herself recently widowed Queen Alice (Françoise Christophe), takes in a small boy found by the waterside might remind some of another late fifties opus, namely The Ten Commandments.

The film jumps forward a couple of decades after this establishing premise to find the Viking raised Eron (Cameron Mitchell) in love with a Vestal Virgin named Daya (Ellen Kessler). For reasons which aren’t really very well explained, Eron has not in fact assumed the throne of his father, and instead King Olaf (Jean-Jacques Delbo) is in charge and navigating a new multinational attack on the English. Olaf does want Eron has his chief acolyte, something that puts Eron into conflict with Garian (Joe Robinson).

There’s an arguably overconvoluted series of events which follows after Eron’s brother Erik (George Ardisson) enters the fray as a leader of the English forces. A kind of silly set of melodramatic subplots, one involving an almost Shakespearean farcical element revolving around Daya’s twin sister Rama (Alice Kessler) intrudes and tends to keep the film at a kind of B-movie level when some of Bava’s stylistic proclivities hint at something grander and more epic in scope. The film is really quite sumptuously shot, with excellent location usage of a coastal region Bava utilized throughout his career (again according to Lucas). Mitchell attempts to inject a little “method” to the otherwise fairly florid madness on display in some of the other performances.

Erik the Conqueror Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Erik the Conqueror is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's typically informative insert booklet has the following information on the restoration:

Erik the Conqueror (Gli invasori) has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with Italian and English mono audio.

All restoration work was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin- registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital vision's Nucoda Film Master. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, picture instability and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques.

The mono Italian language track was remastered from the optical sound track negatives. The English language track was sourced from the best master elements available. There are times in which audio synchronisation will appear loose against the picture, due to the fact that audio was fully recorded in post-production.

I frankly waffled a bit as to whether to score this with a 4.0 or 4.5, but opted for the higher score simply because, aside from some issues I'm about to mention, this transfer looks quite beautiful most of the time in motion. The color reproduction here is really quite glorious almost all of the time, with just a slight hint of blue or purple occasionally looking a bit too prominent. But a typically almost garish Bava-esque palette is on display here and looks excitingly vivid and extremely well saturated.

Despite the restoration efforts, there are still several pretty noticeable scratches, often rather long vertical ones that last for relatively long times (see screenshot 16, where two parallel scratches are evident), something that seems like it might have been remedied a bit more completely. There are also occasional compression hurdles and grain resolution issues that are encountered, as are documented in screenshot 5 as well as 14 through 19 (excepting screenshot 16, which documents the scratch situation). The longest occurrence of these issues is right at the beginning of the film, where a number of elements, like optical titles and swirling smoke from the battle, along with a pretty heavy grainfield (even after the titles have ended), contribute to a somewhat noisy appearance.

Erik the Conqueror Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As can be gleaned from Arrow's statement regarding the soundtracks in the video section above, there's a noticeable difference between the Italian LPCM mono and English LPCM mono tracks. While there's nothing overtly horrible about the English track (with the possible exception of some of the voice acting), it sounds noticeably less forceful when toggling over to the Italian track, especially in terms of reproduction of effects and the kind of gloriously hyperbolic score from Roberto Nicolisi. No matter what language you choose, you're getting dubbed material, so along with the "loose" synchronization mentioned in Arrow's statement above, there's a certain disconnect at times between voice performances and what's going on in the frame. The Italian track has better if not superlative fidelity, along with a somewhat wider dynamic range than the English language track.

Erik the Conqueror Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Tim Lucas is a typically informative piece from the Bava biographer. It sounds like perhaps he's reading from prepared notes, but he keeps things nicely conversational as he documents a number of interesting data points about this "most underappreciated" (as he calls it) Bava film.


• Cameron Mitchell Interview (1:03:23) is a rather interesting 1989 audio interview of Mitchell done by Tim Lucas which covers Mitchell's collaborations with Bava.


• Gli Imitatori (1080p; 12:06) is a fun visual essay by Michael Mackenzie comparing this film to Richard Fleischer's The Vikings.


• Original Ending comes with this interesting information as a prelude:

  The final shot of Erik the Conqueror / Gli Invasori, showing Eron's funeral ship in flames at sea, is no longer attached to original camera negative, and, despite our best efforts, could not be located.
  
  Bava scholar Tim Lucas provided us with a copy of this missing shot, sourced from a UK VHS release.
  
  Due to the distracting nature of the gulf in quality this and the otherwise pristine HD restoration, it was decided to omit from the main feature presentation and instead present it as a bonus feature.

  The actual shot in question only shows up at around circa 00:59 of this supplement and then lasts for just a few seconds before the end title card.

As usual, Arrow has also provided a nicely appointed insert booklet with writing, archival stills and information on the transfer.

Erik the Conqueror Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You can't really get past the fact that Erik the Conqueror is kind of a big, silly quasi-sword and sandal "epic", but it's uniquely enjoyable nonetheless, sparked by a rather potent display of gorgeous cinematography and above average production design. It's "popcorn fare", to be sure, but in its own way, it achieves what it sets out to do more competently than many other, more high minded, historical epics have been able to do. Technical merits are generally strong, and Arrow has assembled some enjoyable supplements. Recommended.