Queen Aminah (Rosanna Schiaffino) is the villain in the 1964 Yugoslav adventure film, The Long Ships. The film was directed by Jack Cardiff and starred Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Russ Tamblyn, Rosanna Schiaffino, and Beba Lončar.
The movie opens with a narration by Rolfe is a shipwrecked Norseman stranded in the Middle East and trying to get back home to his people in Scandinavia. Rolfe tells a group of people in the marketplace about a giant bell known as the Mother of Voices. Rolfe believes he once heard the loud chime of the before his ship crashed into the rocks.
One of the people listening to his story is a spy for the Moorish King Aly Mansuh (Sidney Poitier). Aly Mansuh is obsessed with building a ship to search and the Mother of Voices, which legend has it is a giant bell made from solid gold.
Aly Mansuh has a harem full of wives and concubines and his first wife is Queen Aminah (Rosanna Schiaffino) who is feeling a bit unloved by her constantly distracted husband and his room full of women and constant obsession with the mother of voices.
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Aminah attempts to seduce her husband King Mansuh but he lusts only for gold.
Aminah is constantly vying for her husband’s attention. She wears some of the most amazing outfits in the history in a constant attempt to seduce him for a quicky. Mansuh is too distracted to take her bait and she is left to simmer in her own juices.
Mansuh has the Norseman Rolfe arrested and brought before him and demands that the Viking tell him where he heard the chime of the Mother of Voices.
Looking around the King’s map room Rolfe where he is being questioned, he sees that Mansuh’s chamber has no bars on the window and that the ocean is just outside. Rolfe distracts Mansuh as he moves toward the window and makes his escape by diving into the ocean.
Rolfe is free.
Time passes as Rolfe makes his way back to his Scandinavian village and he is able to steal a Viking long ship and talk a number of men to follow him on an expedition to find the Mother of Voices. One of his crewmen Orm (Russ Tamblyn) also brings his girlfriend Gerda (Beba Lončar) along, just to make life difficult for a group of men on a long sea voyage. Orm kidnapped the buxom Gerda while she was taking a bath to prevent her from marrying a rival.
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Orm kidnaps his one true love Gerda while she is taking a bath.
Once the Long ships sets sail Gerda is discovered by the crew and they begin to riot, also the ship was supposed to be a Viking funeral ship and has a black sail which once unfurled the crew sees as an omen of bad luck.
In an attempt to appease the crew Rolfe pretends to sacrifice the Gerda to the Viking gods, killing a sheep in her place and hiding the girl in the hold of the ship.
Rolfe and his crew return to the area where he last heard the chime of the legendary bell. Once again his ship is wrecked. But this time his crew survives and they are able to begin repairs on their ship. They are then taken prisoner by Mansuh’s men.
Mansuh claims Gerda as a new addition to his collection of women.
This doesn’t please Queen Aminah, who is already at the end of a long line of women when ever she wants love and or affection from her husband.
Queen Aminah has Rolfe brought to her chambers and she lies are her bed seductively as she questions him.
Mean while Orn has escaped and is tried to locate Gerda to save her from King Mansuh. While searching for Gerda he passes through the chambers of Mansuh’s harem where dozens of beautiful women sleep on soft cushions of silk. Orn is focused on his mission and will not be distracted by the scantily dressed sleeping beauties.
King Mansuh inspects Greda, his latest womanly acquisition.
A few of the beauties wake to find Orn and his companion searching for Gerda, under duress they point Orn to where Gerda and Mansuh negotiating Gerda’s near future as one of his women.
Surprisingly after sending Orn on his way the harem girls don’t sound the alarm. This might indicate some displeasure with being kept women of the king. It might also indicate that these women are willing participants in the chaos that follows.
Orn finds Gerda who is waiting for Mansuh in his royal deflowering chamber. Orn holds the king at sword point but doesn’t kill him or take him hostage for some reason. Orn and Gerda are about to escape when Mansuh throws a spear at them. Orn and Mansuh cross swords in deadly combat.
The two men fight using curved scimitar swords holding the weapons as if they were light épée dueling swords in a not very well choreographed fight scene.
The King's Harem watches the Viking captives on parade.
Meanwhile Rolfe has again been taken to the Queen Aminah’s chambers. She has an inch that needs to be scratched in the worst way and she is bitterly jealous of her husband and his new plaything Gerda. Rolfe soon realizes why he is there as he is greeted by the lascivious Queen sitting on her bed. As the couple grow more comfortable in each other’s company Rolfe closes the distance between the two of them. Until the scene gets too sexually tense and there is a quick cut.
The rest of the Vikings have escaped and found their way to the chambers of the royal harem. These men who have been treated like animals for many days now suddenly see the Promised Land. A from full of wanton harem girls neglected by their master.
The Vikings introduce themselves to the king's Harem girls.
A lone eunuch attempts to fight for the honor of his king as the sexually deprived harem girls meet the sexually deprived Viking raiders in all their glory.
The action if fast and funny and the frustrated eunuch becomes the center of the action as the filmmakers attempt to down play the orgy that is occurring.
The army soon hears the noise and the King’s soldiers soon arrive.
The King now checks on his wife to see if she has been harmed by the nasty Vikings. She says that she has not. When the King leaves the Queen goes to where Rolfe is hiding. She tells him he must leave at once. They have quick make out session while saying goodbye, they are still feeling the afterglow of their long-awaited romp in the Queens bed. Suddenly the Queen realizes that the King’s men are returning to her room. Rolfe jumps from the window but is captured.
The Vikings are now slaves. They are forced to work helping the King locate the Mother of Voices.
They fix their ship and under heavy guard sail off under the command of the king. Find and bring back the giant bell.
But when the return to the King’s city something strange has occurred. It’s unclear at first but there is a tension in the air.
The other Vikings from Rolfe’s village have arrived while they were out searching for the bell. They have taken the city and now stand behind the Royal guard daggers in hand.
At knifepoint no one says a thing. It is Queen Aminah, who once cuckolded her cheating husband who sounds the alarm in n aattempt to save her husband. A Viking spear in the chest silences her and sadly the beautiful Queen Amina'sh first wife to King Mansuh dies in his arms.
Trivia[]
- Rosanna Schiaffino appeared as Princess Phaedra in the 1960 peplum film The Minotaur, the Wild Beast of Crete.