Knights of the Round Table (1953)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Sir Thomas Malory's traditional tales of King Arthur and Lancelot are made even more commercially palatable with this costumed version from the British arm of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The narrative has become so basic (and dull), presumably for mass consumption, that all we have left to respond to is the ornate production. Robert Taylor's Lancelot devotes himself to being Guinevere's champion (not that her husband--Mel Ferrer's vacuous King Arthur--would notice!), but Taylor seems to have wandered in from another picture; his diction is thudding and his hangdog face never brightens, not even in the presence of a ravishing Ava Gardner as Guinevere (who doesn't so much flirt with Lancelot as she does beam and glow with silent affection). The overlong film is a sumptuous spread, and there's plenty of action, but the episodes fail to come together as a whole and the sound recording (Oscar nominated!) is barely adequate. Consequently, the legendary characters rarely come to life. ** from ****

In this story about King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and the Lady Guenevere, the acting is superb and the English countryside is beautiful. Mel Ferrer shows forth great dramatic ability as the calm-yet-firm King Arthur, Robert Taylor (in one of finest roles, I feel) is the consummate actor as the arrogant Sir Lancelot, and Ava Gardner as the very beautiful Lady Guenevere would make anyone want to fight over and for her. Stanley Baker truly wants anyone want to kill the mean and heartless Mordred. And too, Miklos Rozsa provided a very fitting and well-done music score. You never tire from watching the movie, thanks to the romance, sword-fighting, and even the aesthetics of it; it is exciting from beginning to end. The movie is unique in another sense: it is the first Cinemascope movie of MGM. Because of the acting, excitement, intrigue, and aesthetics, this movie is a favorite of mine.

Knights of the Round Table is directed by Richard Thorpe and adapted to screenplay by Talbot Jennings, Noel Langley & Jan Lustig from the novel Le Morte d'Arthur written by Sir Thomas Malory. It stars Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Stanley Baker, Anne Crawford and Felix Aylmer. Music is scored by Miklós Rózsa and cinematography by Stephen Dade and Freddie Young.An interesting spin on the Arthurian legend for MGM, who film it in Cinemascope (first time for the studio) and dress it up grandly as the actors have a good old time in the days of yore. Here the romantic angle comes via Lancelot (Taylor) and Guinevere (Gardner) having lusty lustations for one and other that cause a tremble in the stability of Camelot. With Guinevere to marry King Arthur, and both she and the heroic Lancelot loyal to the King and his ideals for Camelot, it's not a real problem until the dastardly Modred (Baker) and the scheming Morgan le Fay (Crawford) start to throw spanners into the works that result in murder, suspicion and war.It's all very fanciful stuff, full of derring-do machismo, but the action is well staged by Thorpe (cracking finale between good and evil), the outer location photography at Tintagel in Cornwall is most pleasing, Rózsa's score sweeps in and out of the well dressed sets and the cast do their director proud by not overdoing the material to hand. Yes it inevitably hasn't aged particularly well, and modern film fans may balk at the many passages of detailed chatter in the well developed script, but this comes from a grand old time in cinema. When production value meant hard graft in front of and behind the camera . Honour and integrity is not only big within the story itself, it's also themes that apply to the film makers as well. Hooray! 7.5/10

This movie is a camp classic: so appallingly written and acted that one is transfixed with ridiculousness. I'm sure it was great fun to parade around in these ludicrous clothes and say these lines. Complete with cartoon sets -- check out the Styrofoam Stonehenge! Even the horses are funny. People think Monty Python was satire, but it was really straight documentary. The speaking parts artfully combine John Wayne swagger with cod-Shakespearean silliness. "That, Sir Knight, shall be mah playsher." Ava Gardner is radiant but talentless, and Robert Taylor, well, he's just talentless. I give it a six for entertainment value, but believe me, this is a terrible, terrible movie.