See The Warlord

Warlord (comics)

The Warlord is a sword and sorcery comic book published by DC Comics. The series and titular character debuted in 1st Issue Special #8 , and was created by Mike Grell.-Publication history:...

 for the comic.

The War Lord is a 1965 film starring Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

, Richard Boone

Richard Boone

Richard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...

, Rosemary Forsyth

Rosemary Forsyth

Rosemary Forsyth is a Canadian-born American actress most notable for her role as Bronwyn opposite Charlton Heston in The War Lord in 1965....

, Guy Stockwell

Guy Stockwell

Guy Harry Stockwell was an American actor who appeared in nearly 30 movies and 250 television series episodes....

, Maurice Evans

Maurice Evans (actor)

Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. In terms of his screen roles, he is probably best known as Dr...

, Niall MacGinnis

Niall MacGinnis

Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who made 80 screen appearances.-Early life:MacGinnis was born in Dublin in 1913. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in England, and studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon...

, Henry Wilcoxon

Henry Wilcoxon

Henry Wilcoxon was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and best known as a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films....

 and James Farentino

James Farentino

James Farentino is an American actor. He has appeared in almost one hundred roles, among them in The Final Countdown, Jesus of Nazareth, and Dynasty.-Career:...

, with Jon Alderson, Allen Jaffe, Sammy Ross, and Woodrow Parfrey

Woodrow Parfrey

Woodrow Parfrey was an American film and television actor from the 1950s to the early 1980s. e appeared on Broadway in Advise and Consent .-Biography:...

. The film was directed by the future Oscar winning Director Franklin J. Schaffner, and the screenplay was by the acclaimed John Collier. The film is an adaptation of the play, The Lovers, written by Leslie Stevens

Leslie Stevens

Leslie Clark Stevens III was the creator of the cult TV series The Outer Limits and director of the cult horror film Incubus , starring William Shatner. He wrote an early work of New Age philosophy, Est: The Steersman Handbook .-Early life and career:Leslie Stevens was born in Washington, D.C...

, the creator of The Outer Limits

The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)

The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...

.

Up until this film, most Hollywood representations of feudal life were glamorized. The War Lord attempts to portray the 11th century in a more accurate fashion as dirty, violent and ruled by brute force. The social stratification imposed by feudalism governed every human relationship, with power devolving from the duke, to the knight, to the men at arms, the church and the peasantry at the very bottom.

Plot

Charlton Heston plays Chrysagon de la Cruex, a Norman knight charged with defending a Druid village. At the heart of the story is a doomed romance which defies the social norms and sparks a growing confrontation with Chrysagon's brother, Draco, played by Guy Stockwell.

Chrysagon encounters Bronwyn, his future love, as she is harassed by his own men. Gradually he finds himself falling for the girl he's rescued. Bronwyn's father, the village chief, later asks Chrysagon's permission for Bronwyn to marry. Chrysagon approves, but soon regrets the decision. He wants Bronwyn for himself.

He later learns of "Droit de seigneur

Droit de seigneur

Droit du seigneur is an alleged legal right allowing the lord of a medieval estate to take the virginity of his serfs' maiden daughters. There is no historical evidence that such a right ever existed.-Terminology:...

", a right which permits the Lord of the Domain to sleep with any virgin woman on her wedding night. But custom demands Bronwyn be given up by dawn. The following day, Bronwyn is not returned. What the village doesn't realize is that she's chosen to stay of her own free will.

All of this takes place against the background of war against Frisian (Viking) raiders who plague the Norman coast.