4/5 Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is a little more complex than this
  by Charles Sloden (Lancaster PA)
But on the other hand, it's a good movie, especially if you enjoy historical epics and tales of Saxons and Normans, jousting, King Richard, Robin Hood, etc. Not exactly historically accurate, but entertaining and diverting. Taylor's "acting" is mediocre but I hear she gets much better in her next pictures.

3/5 Comments on DVD Quality
  by E. McElroy (MA USA)
This is perhaps the worst DVD quality I have yet seen from a major studio: colors are washed out, resolution is mediocre, for the first 20% of the film there are vertical scratches in the print, and the music in the opening credits shows severe high frequency loss. The defects were so many that I didn't bother pursuing the audio in greater detail although speech was at least reasonably intelligible. Overall, the quality is about on a par with a VHS tape and vastly inferior to that of the laserdisc issued in 1993.

In a quick check of reviews here I found only one person who commented on the poor quality of this DVD and, surprisingly, I found a review that praised its quality. That was from a "Top 100" reviewer which confirms my suspicion of reviews from people who write large numbers of them.

Combined with the serious scratches in the print of the Olivier/Garson version of Pride and Prejudice which I recently saw, I've become a bit leery of purchasing a Warner DVD without renting it first to examine the quality. Potential purchasers of this title might want to do the same to see if they can tolerate the many defects in this release.

1/5 Deterioration of VHS Tapes
  by Classic Film Lover
Many classic films on VHS tape are being lost due to deterioration of the tapes, even if they are considered to be "new" tapes. I had to return a tape to a seller because of this issue. After viewing the returned tape, the seller refunded my purchase price, but that did not assuage our disappointment at not being able to retain the film.

5/5 In days of old when knights were bold....
  by Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth)
If you fancy stories set in the Medieval era, or if you love lavish Technicolor spectacles-- if you're a romance fan, action buff, afficionado of gorgeous actresses... have I got the perfect movie FOR YOU!

IVANHOE (1952) absolutely has it all. Besides the amazing color photography, this picture includes a formal jousting contest, Robin Hood and hundreds of men beseiging a castle with clusters of flying arrows, and a to-the-death horseback fight where one knight wields a mace and chain and the other a battleax. If that's not enough, there's intrigue, marvelous period costumes, a King's ransom in gold and jewels, a feast or two and Liz Taylor-- who has NEVER looked so beautiful!

CAST:
Robert Taylor - Ivanhoe
Elizabeth Taylor - Rebecca
Joan Fontaine - Rowena
George Sanders - De Bois-Guilbert
Emlyn Williams - Wamba
Robert Douglas - Sir Hugh De Bracy
Finlay Currie - Cedric
Felix Aylmer - Isaac
Norman Wooland - King Richard
Harold Warrender - Locksley (Robin Hood)
Sebastian Cabot - Clerk of Copmanhurst


The Robert Taylor version of IVANHOE is available on both VHS and DVD.
As of 2/09, the 1982 Anthony Andrews/James Mason TV movie is only on premium-priced VHS tapes.

5/5 Honestly- They Don't Make Them Like This Anymore
  by R. J. Marsella (California)
Ivanhoe is one of those old fashioned Hollywood productions that can be enjoyed both for what it was , a great swashbuckler , as well as a nostalgic look back at a type of film that would never be made today. The cast is first rate and the while the film predates some of the tech advances that were used in the huge blockbuster epics to come in the next decade (Ben Hur, El Cid and Cleopatra as examples) it is still beautifully filmed.

No film from this period will be completely free from being somewhat corny by today's standards and Ivanhoe has some element of that. The battle scenes are entertaining but blood free and a bit short on realism. The screenplay is generally well done but with lot's of archaic lines ("Make Ready The Boulders").

The film based on Sir Walter Scott's novel takes a few liberties with the original story. Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and the supporting cast appear to be really enjoying themselves.

All in all I really enjoyed this and it reminded me of the type of film my friends and I would go see at a Saturday matinee when we were kids.