A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in love with a beautiful woman and pledges an oath to bring her "three trophies" from the Teutonic Knights.
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Reviews
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
This history film is about the events before the famous Grunwald battle between Teutonic knights and the joint Polish-Lithuanian forces. It depicts Polish sufferings under the grasp of the greedy Order. I think this is a very weak film even by the standards of the 60-s which produced lots of poor historical films. But for a modern viewer it becomes practically unwatchable. The story line is quite simple and predictable, the characters are depicted in a primitive black and white fashion. The script leaves no places for acting and psychological development of the characters. The costumes are very rudimentary as well, all identical and as if cut from paper. Finally the history is altered and dumbed down to become a boring patriotic poster.
Watching this was a chore. It is, for the entire length of the film, nothing but anti-German Propaganda. The Teutonic Knights are played by steel eyed doofuses. The battle scenes are terrible; repetitive editing, horse riders jumping off horses for no reason, and no one is ever hit by a weapon it seems. Plus, there's not enough extras to fill in the gaps for the battle so it looks like a small fight between inept idiots.The Polish are played by good natured nobles and there's an annoying quote to "god" about every 20 seconds. I can't recommend this since it's so tepid and dull.
KNIGHTS OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER, based on the novel by Nobel winner Henryk Sienkiewicz, is full of intensely melodramatic conflicts and nonstop action; Sienkiewicz's fiction was more in the mold of THE THREE MUSKETEERS and IVANHOE than WAR AND PEACE, and the source material makes for a highly entertaining movie. The epic scope is quite impressive (fully comparable to Hollywood epics of the same era, like QUO VADIS or SPARTACUS). The setting will be unfamiliar to many audiences (Poland and Prussia in the middle ages), but the plight of the Polish knight Jurand as he and his family are tormented by the dastardly Teutonic Knights is emotionally involving. I saw this in 2005 on a not-so-good video from Polart (washed-out color, poor subtitles), but I've recently seen a DVD on offer, which I hope will have higher quality; it's a handsomely made film that deserves restoration and a wider audience.
It's a well-made film but you have to consider the political circumstances: Polish party-leader Wladyslaw Gomulka needed another symbol of convincing his nation that the Germans were and are the biggest enemies in the world...