cruel and unusual

I watched a classic movie the other night, The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine and the gorgeous Janet Leigh (who was Mrs Tony Curtis at the time). The film is 50 years old and the best turn in it is Borgnine's performance as the old viking king. The worst thing in it is the costume worn by Tony Curtis, which features a pair of what look very like hot pants. He plays a slave in the film. I'm not sure that 'slave' was a concept vikings understood. They were not as class-obsessed as ancient Greeks or Imperial Romans. But as I watched I started to think, maybe the slave hot pants were a deliberate psychological ploy to debilitate the slaves by ridicule so they wouldn't revolt. In this case it didn't work. Curtis, despite his debilitating hot pants, half-blinded and eventually killed Kirk and finally got the girl.
The best thing about the movie was the genuine Scandinavian locations. I always thought and still think Star Wars ridiculous because it was so obviously shot in Morocco. Morocco does not, with the best will in the world, look like a planet from a far flung alien galaxy. Tony's hot pants were made of sheepskin, I think. Perhaps just ahead of his time?