The Viking Queen Reviews

Sex and swordplay fill the screen as the ancient British Iceni tribe falls to the glamorous, lightly clad Carita during the long Roman occupation. On his deathbed Lawson, her father, has urged the new queen--whose mother was a Viking--to maintain peace among the warlike British tribes and their foreign conquerors. Carita joins with Murray, the Roman military governor, in this endeavor; their association blossoms into romance. Murray's ambitious second-in-command, Keir, subverts these peaceful intentions by fomenting a rebellion, forcing Murray to lead his legions away to the other side of Hadrian's Wall. With his leader gone, Keir seizes the opportunity to arrest and flog Carita, rape her younger sister, and start an open war between the Romans and the combined forces of the Iceni and the Druids. Murray returns, but too late: Carita has escaped imprisonment by joining the fray, charging the Roman legions with her knife-hubbed chariot. Wounded in battle, she dies in Murray's arms. An interesting, well-photographed attempt to depict the land of the blue-painted troglodytes during a time when few records were kept. The costumes reveal more flesh than might have been wise in the cold, damp climate of the Irish mountains where location scenes were shot. Murray, the lone US national in the cast, is also the only well-known name. Carita, a Finn, made her screen debut here then faded back into obscurity.