Here\u2019s a costume drama in Cinemascope with a good cast and a decent scripting of the Arthur legend.\u00a0 Robert Taylor is Lancelot and Ava Gardner is Guinevere.\u00a0 Their star-crossed love dooms Arthur and Camelot as it always does and Mel Ferrer does a serviceable job in the role.\u00a0 Felix Aylmer is a welcome addition as Merlin.\u00a0 I greatly enjoyed his performance as Polonius in Olivier\u2019s Hamlet.\u00a0 This is a much lesser part but he still makes it an enjoyable character.<\/p>\n
This production is a spirited melodrama that spins the story pretty well.\u00a0 The battle scenes are well staged and sizable and the sword fights are pretty good.\u00a0 In this version Lancelot is given extra scope.\u00a0 He is even allowed to kill Mordred or Modred as he is called in this version instead of giving that honor to Arthur.\u00a0 The ending has an angelic vision of the Holy Grail given to Percival which also announces that Lancelot\u2019s son Galahad will be the perfect knight and then for good measure the celestial voice also tells Lancelot that his sins are forgiven.\u00a0 Alright, so this is a bit much for a costume drama.\u00a0 And it sort of oversteps the bounds of this kind of adventure story, I think.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a fun movie with plenty of sword fighting and really bad villains and very likeable good guys so it gets the job done.<\/p>\n
As far as a recommendation, this movie falls into the same category as a good \u201ccowboys and injuns\u201d shoot ’em up.\u00a0 If you\u2019re in the mood for one it\u2019s harmless fun but if you\u2019re not don\u2019t bother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s a costume drama in Cinemascope with a good cast and a decent scripting of the Arthur legend.\u00a0 Robert Taylor is Lancelot and Ava Gardner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237],"tags":[3472,3474,3469,3470,3473,43,38,1355,3471],"class_list":["post-17035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-ava-gardner","tag-felix-aylmer","tag-king-arthur","tag-knights-of-the-round-table","tag-mel-ferrer","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-robert-taylor"],"yoast_head":"\n