The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957)

ridiculous rating

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I'm amazed at how prolific Roger Corman was. The only good thing about this was some of the music. The rest of the film seemed too long, even at its short running title. It has an even longer title than "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies??!!"! What makes this underwhelming is how there's a massive amount of padding in this. The title sea serpent only has a minute or two of screen time in total! You're telling me that one of the longest movie titles in history doesn't even feature the title character that much at all?! "Dr. Strangelove" did the same thing but it was actually entertaining.The actual voyage is but a fraction of the full film. At the end, the main characters summon the Gods to help them who kill some enemies. Then what next? The Gods just ignore them and let everything unfold as it should. Why'd they help them that time? Were some of them unbelievers? The characters are obnoxious and whiny. On top of all that, there are very ugly shades of blue, although that might have just been the MST3K version. Either way, this is a huge letdown if only because of its title. *

At first glance, "The Saga Of The Viking Women and Their Blah Blah Blah..." looks like it will be a lot of fun. It's an early American-International movie, a studio that even back then pushed for exploitation entertainment in their movies. It's also directed by Roger Corman, whose movies usually prove to be a lot of fun. And the movie starts off being a lot of fun. In the first part of the movie, we get a lot of unintended laughs. The back projection of ocean when the ship is afloat makes it look like the ship is hovering hundreds of feet above the surface, the ship is pretty small yet a stowaway manages to sneak aboard and stay hidden for some time (but later, all of a sudden, he's with the crew, with his exposure never seen.) There's 21th century terms in the dialogue, and the sea serpent effects are laughable. That's the first part. Unfortunately, around the time the viking women wash ashore, the movie quickly turns around and becomes surprisingly boring. It's not campy, just dull. Had the movie kept its focus on the viking women, or the sea serpent for that matter (the movie forgets about the sea serpent after the first appearance until the very end), the movie would probably been a lot more entertaining. At least the movie is short (66 minutes.)

Despite a meager $65,000 budget, and thanks to Corman's skill in making a little money go a long way, the film looks far more expensive than its actual cost. True, despite his co-star status in the movie's title, the serpent figures very little in the film's action, most of the heavy's duties being taken over by the fascinatingly treacherous Richard Devon and the equally charming Susan Cabot (the Wasp Woman herself). Lithe Abby Dalton plays the Viking leader with appropriate girlish gusto, while twisted but surprisingly ungrateful Jay Sayer has his menacing moments as a petulant prince. The story is absolute nonsense from first to last, but Corman keeps the action moving at such a commendably fast clip from go to whoa, a total lack of conviction doesn't really amount to a factor that will upset rabid American-International fans.

A group of luscious and scantily clad '50s Viking babes decide to board a boat to search for their missing men who have disappeared some time ago. They wind up terrorized and shipwrecked by the giant creature of the title and the find themselves prisoners of a tribe of men who want to use them as their slaves.Thanks to director Roger Corman, this cheesy flick is made into something at least watchable. And for me, any chance to see blonde Sally Todd (FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER) and raven-haired Susan Cabot (THE WASP WOMAN) strutting their stuff is a plus.** out of ****