Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The Viking is a black and white movie that explains how sealers live their lives. It is based in Newfoundland, which at the time of the filming, was not yet part of Canada, but now is. The movie has features of the Metropolis in the machine-like efficiency of the men who were sealers. There was an authenticity to the movie and the filming. The wooden vessel, the snow and ice formations and the ropes that were used had such terror and fear to them, that these aspects automatically added to the tension and suspense in the movie. Somehow I found the mood of this movie to remind me of two other films, one was Citizen Kane and the other was The Crow. With reference to Citizen Kane, the black and white film sequences captured a doomed man and in a sense that is what The Viking did as well. Second, in the movie The Crow, which has something magical about it - like The Viking, which had superstition wrapped around it - both movies (on a different scale) had death. This death feeling lingers - and it creates something very otherworldly. This darkness seems to lure an audience and it also stamps and seals the movie and puts movies into a new dimension - almost like a genre of it's own. It is like movies like The Crow and The Viking become Existential stories and time-sealed into something very true to the human entrepreneurial spirit, the pioneer spirit. It encapsulates the passion of human drive to succeed and create the best film ever - even if it entails death. This human passion is both a positive and a negative quality and I believe it is in this element that creates, what I will call Element movies: movies one step above the rest.

"The Viking" is a very important movie. It was, according to IMDb, the first Canadian* talking picture. It also has the infamous distinction of having the most crew members killed in the production of the film! Apart from all this, it has lots of amazing footage of the frozen North. However, unfortunately, it also is an incredibly dull film and is very dated--particularly when it comes to the sound quality.The film begins with Luke (Charles Starrett) being discovered by Jed (Arther Vinton) freezing to death in the snow, so he brings Luke back to town and saves him. However, soon the film looks like a Popeye cartoon**, as both guys want the same girl and Jed sure looks and acts a lot like Bluto! So, when the two guys go off to sea later on a sea hunting expedition***, you KNOW that sooner or later, the pair will end up beating the snot out of each other to win the hand of Mary Joe. Unfortunately, in the interim, there is snow, snow, snow and more snow--as well as footage of the expedition. It's MILDLY interesting from a historical standpoint but dramatically, it's deadly dull. How will it all end? And, more importantly, will you even care?! I sure know I didn't. And, it's a shame so many people died to make such a dull film.*Although the production was Canadian and it was filmed in Canada, it's odd that all three of the leads were Americans.**Yes, I know that the first Popeye cartoon did not appear until two years later. It just SEEMED a lot like Popeye and I think having Luke pop out a can of spinach and wailing on Jed would have been a billion times better than the way the film really went.***Yes, seal hunting isn't politically correct and PETA-types will no doubt be offended. But it was 1931, dang it!

This 1931 film is the first talkie produced in Canada. The sound is just plain awful. About half the dialog is impossible to decipher, but that's not a bad thing since the dialog is awful anyway.This Canadian film, shot in Newfoundland and Labrador, stars Charles Starrett (the future cowboy star) as bad luck Luke, who sails on "The Viking" on a seal-hunting expedition. His rival and enemy (Arthur Vinton) does everything he can to make the voyage a misery. They are rivals for the hand of Mary Jo (Louise Huntington). The love story is not well done and we've seen it a hundred times before.What is remarkable about this film is the location shooting among the ice floes and bergs. The film takes on a documentary feel as we watch the men battle the ice, scamper across the floes, and wander for miles searching for seals. The plot finally gets interesting after the seal slaughter when the two men are left behind and the ship sails for home. They then have to battle the elements as they walk back to St. Johns.The film was co-directed by veteran George Melford and young Varick Frissell in his only feature film. The cinematography is grainy but is so astonishing, THE VIKING was mentioned in Kevin Brownlow's masterpiece Hollywood.

A DVD combo-pack on adventurer/photographer Varick Frissell, who died in an explosion on the eponymous seal hunting ship. WHITE THUNDER is a bio that barely lives up to its fascinating subject, but nicely sets up the paired early talkie. THE VIKING is officially directed by George Melford, an A-list silent director who faded fast with sound (his swansong, EAST OF BORNEO/''31, is an unintentional riot). But Frissell must have taken charge of all the Newfoundland location shooting which is so filled with extraordinary footage of sealers, churning ice floes, full-rigged ships, sea & sun that you'd gladly put up with twice the cornball "two guys & a gal" hokum so mechanically delivered by the talent-challenged cast.