Camelot ***½ (1967, Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, David Hemmings) – Classic Movie Review 2180

South Pacific and Paint Your Wagon director Joshua Logan turns the pleasantly tuneful and rather splendid Frederick Loewe (music) and Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) musical about life and loves at the court of King Arthur in the days of the Knights of the Round Table into a costly ($15million), visually sumptuous spectacle.

There were three Academy Awards for this 1967 movie version of the top hit Broadway show, with the costumes (John Truscott), art-direction/set decoration (John Truscott, Edward Carrere, John Brown), and scoring (Ken Darby, Alfred Newman) winning the Oscars. Loewe won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Richard H Kline’s handsome Technicolor cinematography and the crisp stereophonic sound were also Oscar nominated.

Richard Harris stars as King Arthur, with Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Guinevere, Franco Nero as Sir Lancelot of the Lake, David Hemmings as Mordred, Lionel Jeffries as King Pellinore and Laurence Naismith as Merlin. And this risky casting of actors rather than singers sadly doesn’t entirely pay off, but it is nevertheless charismatically played by the cast of able players. Indeed Harris won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor – Musical/Comedy.

Alas, too, there are not many great songs in Camelot, and the ones we have here are jaunty rather than memorable, apart from the haunting ‘If Ever I Would Leave You’ which is an all-time-great showstopper and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. And, though often charming, the movie is also ponderous and over-inflated, running a long-seeming three full hours.

Also in the cast are Pierre Olaf, Estelle Winwood (who lived till aged 101), Gary Marshal, Anthony Rogers, Peter Bromilow, Sue Casey, Gary Marsh and Nicolas Beauvy.

Richard Burton and Julie Andrews did the stage show, and they are much missed from the movie, good though Harris and Redgrave may be.

Lerner’s screenplay is based on his own play, which was adapted from T H White’s classic novel The Once and Future King.

Richard H Kline, the Academy Award-nominated cinematographer for Camelot and King Kong (1976), died on 7 August 2018, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2180

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