Loyal British knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe sets out on a mission to free the kidnapped King of England, Richard the Lionheart and then put him back on the throne while Richard's treacherous brother enjoys ruling in his absence.
The dialogue and script are fatuously Americanised from Scott's original, but these chivalric Hollywood sagas still have a strange poetic quality about them.
While Joan Fontaine was one of MGM's marquee beauties, she must have rued the day that Ivanhoe's other damsel went to Elizabeth Taylor, who steals Fontaine's thunder with her eyes alone.
Luxe MGM historical ransacking, locationed to the nines, beautiful to look upon, but with energy lapses in the soggy script of Sir Walter Scott's epic classic.
By standrads of the 1950s, this is a passably entertaining period adventure, representing Hollywood's effort to fight the competition from the new and threatening medium of TV.
In a way the next best thing to the real Arthurian classic that Hollywood never made, with the added plus of Robin Hood and his Merry Men (if only Warrender weren't so stiff).