Summary
"When I had been in Norway for five weeks, the stars [Kirk Douglas], [Tony Curtis], and [Janet Leigh], arrived to the film set," Tore Persson recalls. "Both Curtis and Douglas were in a good physical trim, and they would do a lot of different stunts, such as jumping over some of the horses that were used in the film." Persson goes on to say, "we who rowed had very little to do with the stars. When they arrived, they walked around looking at the properties and the Viking ships." He continues, "The actors and parts of the film crew lodged aboard the luxurious ship Flying Clipper, while we extras stayed aboard Soma, a run-down, old ferry. Although the vessels were docked side by side, we never dealt with each other."
"The next morning," Douglas writes in his autobiography, "the entire Norwegian crew went on strike. They wanted more money." Douglas was shocked. How could they do this after such a wonderful party the night before? Furious, Douglas called for a meeting of his film team. They went through the shots that remained to be taken in Norway. Can we do this scene on stage? What about this one? It seemed that everything left could be done in Munich. Douglas decided, "It's a wrap! Get everything together. We're leaving."Kirk Douglas writes in his memoirs that The Vikings was a tremendous success when it went up on the American movie theaters on May the 9th 1958. "Does he really write that?" Persson says astonished. "When the film came to [Malm]ö and Sweden it was a total flop." He continues, "the Swedish film critics gave it unfavorable reviews." Lastly he says, "Of course, it is still a memory for life to have been in the movie."See the full content of this document
Extract
Nordic Rowing Goes Hollywood
In the mid-1950s there was an awakening interest in the Vikings in Great Britain and the USA. During this time, Swedish author Frans G. Bengtsson's novel, RÖde Orm, was translated into English. Bengtsson's highly acclaimed two-volume Viking novel, published in 1941 and 1945 in Sweden, was marvelously translated by the English scholar Michael Meyer, who later became well-known for translations of works by Strindberg and Ibsen. The novel, published under the title The Long Ships, would literally hit the British and American booksellers in 1954. As a tremendous success on both sides of the pond, there w...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
