James Mason is outstanding as Isaac of York, and Olivia Hussey's Rebecca is authentic. This is the best dramatization of Ivanhoe ever produced.
One of the strengths of this film was, to my mind, the triumvirate of villains Bois-Guilbert, de Bracy, and Front de Boeuf. Sam Neill is brilliant as the knight torn between his order and his obsession with a "Jewess heathen", and Stuart
Wilson shines in the supporting role of the besotted de Bracy.
Scott, writing 700 years after the time of his story, is not afflicted by the same prejudices as his characters; at least part of his project with Ivanhoe is to present a sympathetic portrait of his Jewish characters. Rebecca, in particular, is one of the most sympathetic and nuanced
characters in the novel, and has often been a favorite of readers, many of whom wish that Ivanhoe could marry Rebecca at the end of the novel instead of Rowena. This was true even during Scott's own lifetime; Scott actually issued a statement defending the plot of his novel as he wrote it, saying that, because of medieval social prejudice, it would have been impossible for a Christian knight to marry a Jew. He also acknowledged that Rebecca was the character most deserving of Ivanhoe's love, but wrote that in life, the people who deserve the most do not always get what they deserve.
Interestingly, it is thought that the character of Rebecca is based on a real woman, Rebecca Gratz, who lived in Philadelphia, and whom Scott learned of from his literary acquaintance Washington Irving.
Tags: Ivanhoe Knights Templars crusaders Olivia Hussey James Mason Rebecca Isaac of York Sir Walter Scott
