Knights of the Round Table

comrade_yui5.0

i love hanging out with shiny knights in castles, in the bountiful woods, on charging horseback, big clanging swords and shields and florid declarations of everlasting love, the cultivation of chivalry and the quest for the grail, all of it is fabulous! ava gardner as guinevere is the most believable casting in the history of film, no one is in doubt that her seismic beauty could tear apart arthur and lancelot's bromance. we need to get back to this era where medieval-ish adventures weren't so washed-out and dirty in trying to seem serious and 'realistic' -- they had dyes back then too! they loved color! as one of the first cinemascope films, this still looks amazing and revels in the splendor of these rolling green hills and imposing fortresses -- the action being kept in these wide shots helps convey the clumsy deadliness of combat during this age. i had a real blast here and found this a bright & lively dose of arthuriana that still shimmers like excalibur.

Willow Maclay

Had this on while editing the book I've been working on. Caught my attention when one character said, "I love this horse like a brother. I would kill him with my own hands and you could eat his flesh if it would give you half his courage." Jesus christ.

Josh Gillam2.0

Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Mel Ferrer star in this adventure based on Arthurian legend, following Sir Lancelot as his forbidden love for the Lady Guinevere becomes exploited by those wishing to take power. Taylor teamed up with Ivanhoe director Richard Thorpe once again for a more grounded take on this classic story, heavily downplaying the magical elements of the tale to focus on historical aspects instead, but the end result feels quite dry in practise; a few battles are shown from time to time as Arthur and his men fight to keep the crown, but these scenes are surrounded by lots of moments with characters standing around that adds to the overall stodgy feeling to it all, hard to really care as it goes on what happens. I think this picks up towards the end once the scheming culminates and the different factions turn on one another, but these revelations are done at such a clip, squeezed in so quickly one after another that it minimises their impact. Weirdly uneven pacing is probably to blame for this, as all the most interesting elements only start to get introduced in this last segment, the rest of the film losing momentum and character development thanks to all the stuffy filler when it should have leaned a lot further into this court intrigue. Knights of the Round Table just doesn’t play to its strengths storywise, so while brief flashes hit that chivalrous traditionalist vibe this is going for I think it just needed an extra something in its telling to make best use of the parts that do work, as a whole maybe just a little too overly worthy to be fun.