Starring: Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Anne Crawford, Stanley Baker Directed By: Richard Thorpe Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Feature: Long live King Arthur and Camelot! Yet in all of ancient England's newfound peace there is "a fraying link in Arthur's chain:" the growing passion between heroic knight Sir Lancelot and beautiful Queen Guinevere.One of history's most beloved legends is vibrantly retold in an adaptation downplaying fantasy elements and giving 6th-century England a new kind of fantasy: a dazzling Hollywood sheen bur Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: July 01, 2003 Running Time: 115 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: January 15, 1954
Features:
Long live King Arthur and Camelot! Yet in all of ancient England's newfound peace there is "a fraying link in Arthur's chain:" the growing passion between heroic knight Sir Lancelot and beautiful Queen Guinevere.One of history's most beloved legends is vibrantly retold in an adaptation downplaying fantasy elements and giving 6th-century England a new kind of fantasy: a dazzling Hollywood sheen bur
Product Description: All is not well in King Arthur's court; his queen and Lancelot are falling in love. Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure Rating: NR Release Date: 1-JUL-2003 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: This 1953 follow-up to the successful teaming of actor Robert Taylor and director Richard Thorpe on Ivanhoe isn't quite as good a film, but it is a sumptuous adventure-romance shot on location in England. MGM's first widescreen production finds Taylor playing Sir Lancelot to Mel Ferrer's King Arthur. Based in part on Thomas Malory's 14th-century version of the Camelot legend, Knights of the Round Table tells the familiar tale of Arthur's construction of a Utopian kingdom, where virtue, courage, and a sense of possibility rule the hearts of strong men. Lancelot is there every step of the way, but after Arthur marries a particularly bodacious Guinevere (Ava Gardner), Lancelot can't stifle his love for her, nor can she stifle her own for him. That chink in the wall of the Camelot dream is exploited by detractors Morgan le Fay (Anne Crawford) and Mordred (Stanley Baker), who set up the lovers for their downfall. The script by Talbot Jennings is proficient at capturing the outsized passions of Malory's epic, which may be one reason why Ivanhoe, with a bit more understatedness, is the better of the two adaptations. True-blue Arthurians, however, will want to see this for its visual sweep and loyalty to the source. --Tom Keogh
Using "Knights" for the classroom ^ I purchased "Knights of the Round Table" for my class after a unit on King Arthur and the Round Table stories. The students enjoyed the movie, and there were many similarities to the Sir Mallory stories, adapted, of course, to be more interesting to the viewing public. This is a very old movie, which is one of the reasons I purchased it, knowing that I would not have to worry about inappropriate language or scenes. (Why can't they still make interesting movies whereby we are not assaulted by obscene language and the almost obligatory dirty sex scene?) The students commented on the phoniness of the battle scenes (I explained that special effects had not been perfected by that time.) Overall, I would use this one again in class.
Long Live the Queen! ^ The star and director of MGM's Ivanhoe return for a production that's even more gorgeous and colorful and all in widescreen here. Unfortunately, Taylor is a comically wooden as he was in the earlier film. Whenever the tone turns rueful, he's lost. Mel Ferrer is along as King Arthur, and he's okay, if frankly a little creepy.
But oh, that Ava! She's so smoldering and beautiful she nearly burns a hole in the screen. You cannot take your eyes of her, and she gives a performance that's confident and subtle, in an entirely different class than her two male co-stars. She's completely sensational.
It feels like all the historical epics from this period included Felix Aylmer in the cast and he's Merlin and very good. Young Stanley Baker plays the main villain and manages to make his speeches seem almost Shakespearean. (Plus his eerie resemblance to Roger Federer was never plainer.)
There is some good action and a cool final duel, marred somewhat by a Lassie-style moment. Also, um...the knights engage in a sporting pillow fight. Maybe best of all, Lancelot performs a William Tell arrow and apple trick that I rewound repeatedly and still couldn't see how it was done.
The greatest knight of all ^ Based on Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur (Collector's Library Editions), which is probably the best-known of the pre-19th-century versions of the Arthurian legend, this sumptuously colorful film has all the strengths and weaknesses of its time. Sir Lancelot (matinee idol Robert Taylor), son of King Ban of Benwick (a small realm in Brittany), comes to England in search of King Arthur (Mel Ferrer), whose reputation has convinced him that he is the perfect liege-lord. When the two encounter each other in the woods and anonymously duel to a standstill, their friendship is cemented forever. But when Arthur sends for Guinevere (Ava Gardner), whom he has long loved, to become his queen, and Lancelot rescues her from the Green Knight (Niall MacGinnis) and finds himself struck by love as well, a serpent enters Eden.
The production designers wisely assumed, as did Malory himself, that Arthur, if he existed, presided not over a court of 6th-Century Celts, but over a country much like Malory's own in both technology and sociopolitical organization. The script suggests that Lancelot and Guinevere never physically consummated their passion; indeed Lancelot is determined not to betray Arthur, and allows himself to be married off to Elaine (Maureen Swanson), sister of Percival (Gabriel Woolf), who loves him and whom he comes to genuinely care for, and sent up to the northern border country so temptation will be removed from both of them. Merlin (Felix Aylmer) meets a fate unlike the traditional one familiar to most of us, and some viewers may wonder how Arthur's legitimate half-sister Morgan le Fay (Anne Crawford) can describe Mordred (Stanley Baker) as her heir, since no blood link between them (or between Arthur and Mordred) is ever mentioned. There is, however, a real feel for chivalric tradition in the script, and several good action sequences ranging from single combats to full-scale battles, and like Errol Flynn's classic The Adventures of Robin Hood (Two-Disc Special Edition), the film is so splendidly mounted that you can forget the inaccuracies and just enjoy it for its own sake.
Excellent ^ Fast service. Excellent condition. I like old movies and the old stars that play in them. Thank you.
The immortal legend ^ This is a worthy to watch adaptation of the most important legend of the Western civilization. Lancelot, the bravest among the bravest soldiers under Arthur's kingdom, will have to chose the friendship, the deserved loyalty and the flaming passion in this well known legend.
Robert Taylor made (at least to my mind) his lifetime role. Having as partner Mel Ferrer as Arthur and Stanley Baker, the cast imposed itself over a slow paced script.
Arresting landscapes and colorfully epic. It will amuse you from start to finish. Ava Gardner's dazzling beauty ignites the screen every time she appears, no matter her passable acting as Guinevere.
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