Gawain and the Green Knight ** (1973, Murray Head, Ciaran Madden, Nigel Green) – Classic Movie Review 8491

Director Stephen Weeks’s 1973 adventure fantasy Gawain and the Green Knight is an adequate low-budget attempt to re-create the medieval tale from Mallory’s epic poem of the squire Gawain (Murray Head) who accepts the swordsman’s challenge of the Green Knight (Nigel Green) to cut off his head with one swing of the blade. Then Head has his own head to worry about!

Based on the poem by Mallory, with a screenplay by Weeks and Philip Breen, this is watchable, in an odd sort of way, but there is no real special magic here either as myth or action adventure.

Also in the cast are Ciaran Madden, Nigel Green, Anthony Sharp, Robert Hardy, Murray Melvin, David Leland, Ronald Lacey, Willoughby Goddard, Tony Steedman, George Merritt, Peter Copley, Pauline Letts, Geoffrey Bayldon, Richard Hurndall and Jerrold Wells.

Gawain and the Green Knight [Sir Gawain and the Green Knight] is directed by Stephen Weeks, runs 93 minutes, is made by Scancrest, is released by United Artists, is written by Philip M Breen and Stephen Weeks, is shot in Technicolor by Ian Wilson, is produced by Carlo Ponti and Philip M Breen, is scored by Ron Goodwin and is designed by Anthony Woollard.

It is Nigel Green’s last film.

Weeks, perhaps unsatisfied with United Artists’ recut, re-filmed the yarn in 1983’s Sword of the Valiant.

Search out Excalibur instead.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8491

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