Movie review - "Knights of the Round Table" (1954) **

To understand all the bad artistic decisions that went into making this film,you need to understand MGM had enjoyed a big hit with Ivanhoe, which is how they got it into their heads the bland American Robert Taylor might be suitable for Sir Lancelot, and they also recently scored a success with Scaramouche, hence the equally inappropriate Mel Ferrer as King Arthur. Scaramouche was a wonderful film but unfortunately this one is more inspired by Ivanhoe, with many of the same crew for the latter.

There is a total lack of feel for the subject - you would be hard pressed to find an Arthurian film where taking the sword from the stone is less magical, or the idealism of Camelot and the tragedy of its fall less moving, or a more miscast lead pair of actors (this, when Stewart Granger was under contract and Errol Flynn and Doug Fairbanks Jnr were still alive and looking for work).

Most of the cast look like those history enthusiasts who react medieval battles on special weekends - it's like "Medieval World" theme park.

It occasionally perks to life - in the battle scene between Arthur's troops and Mordred (the camera actually moves and it becomes exciting), Anne Crawford and Stanley Baker are a fine pair of villains, the plot where Elaine falls in love with Lancelot and dies in childbirth is quite moving, Geoffrey Woolf as Sir Percival gets the tone right in his performance (none of the other supporting knights, eg Gawain, are memorable), Ava Gardner is physically right for Guinevere and her character is perhaps the most human (she likes to have Lancelot around and gets jealous when he looks at other women -but they are reluctant to go for the jugular on her).

Taylor and Gardner have nil chemistry (Taylor has nil chemistry with everyone in this film) and the structure is a bit of a mess towards the end - Baker engineers Taylor's banishment, he leads a rebellion (in protest against Arthur not strictly enforcing the rule of law - which you know is totally fair enough, Arthur was playing favourites... is the film endorsing benign dictatorship over the rule of law? That Arthur should ignore laws he doesn't want to obey? What's such an unfair law, i.e. burn people who are adulterers, doing on the books in touchy-feely Arthur's kingdom anyway?), we think we're going to see a big battle... but then Arthur surrenders, then dies (huh? What happened? We're cheated of a big scene), Lancelot comes back, fights a one on one duel with Mordred, then goes and kneels in a church where God tells him "you're not pure,but you're forgiven and your son will find the Grail". Oh and he just chucks Excalibur in a lady (no lady to receive it). It's a bit of a mess, actually it's a total mess, and feels like they ran out of money or something. Or simply energy.