Knights of the Round Table **** (1953, Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Felix Aylmer, Stanley Baker, Anne Crawford) – Classic Movie Review 3653

Director Richard Thorpe’s 1953 British Arthurian adventure once again examines the endlessly fascinating Camelot love triangle and the battling Knights of the Round Table. MGM sends over its glamorous stars Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Mel Ferrer.

King Arthur (Mel Ferrer) banishes Sir Lancelot (Robert Taylor) for making love to his Queen Guinevere (Ava Gardner), but the dashing knight returns to save the day by battling the wicked Sir Mordred (Stanley Baker).

MGM’s and Britain’s first CinemaScope film is a colourful and picturesque rendering of the Arthurian legend, with the best performances coming from the Brits, especially Felix Aylmer as Merlin, Baker as the scheming Mordred and Anne Crawford as an impressive Morgan Le Fay.

It is unfortunate that Gardner and Taylor have the looks but not the fire for Guinevere and Lancelot, while Ferrer makes rather forlorn and unimpressive Arthur. Director Thorpe makes an excellent job of laying on the pageantry but doesn’t stir the emotions.

Dirk Bogarde’s partner Anthony Forwood (who made only a dozen films) plays Gareth, and named his son after the character.

Also in the cast are Robert Urquhart, Niall MacGinnis, Gabriel Woolf,  Maureen Swanson,  Ann Hanslip, Jill Clifford, Stephen Vercoe, Howard Marion-Crawford, Laurence Harvey, John Sherman, Peter Gawthorne, Dana Wynter, Martin Wyldeck, Alan Tilvern, John Brooking, Michael De Lutry, Gwedolyn Evans, Mary Germaine, Desmond Llewelyn, Barry McKay, Roy Russell and Derek Tansley.

The screenplay by Talbot Jennings, Jan Lustig and Noel Langley is taken from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, first published in 1485 by William Caxton.

It is the second in a trilogy made at MGM’s British Studios at Elstree and on location by the same director and producer (Pandro S Berman) and starring Taylor, sandwiched between Ivanhoe (1952) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955). Sequences were shot near Tintagel Castle, with local people as extras, and at Powerscourt Estate in Ireland.

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