The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe

The story comes from Walter Scott’s novel. The year is 1194. The nobility of England is in Norman hands. A few Saxon families are still standing. Wilfred of Ivanhoe is the son of one of them. He is estranged from his father. The reason is his loyalty to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart. The Third Crusade has failed and the king was taken prisoner on his way home, so the country still believes him to be in captivity. Ivanhoe is coming back from that war himself. Tournaments, a siege and a love story are built on that ground. There are five ballads in the film, written and sung by Vladimir Vysotsky. It came ninth at the box office in 1983 and drew more than twenty eight million viewers. Peteris Gaudins and Tamara Akulova appear in the ninety two minute film, a Soviet production Sergei Tarasov finished in 1983.