Knights of the Round Table (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 19, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Richard ThorpeRelease Date(s)
1953 (July 29, 2025)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
While not technically MGM’s first widescreen movie—that honor goes to Billy the Kid (1930), filmed in Realife, a 70mm process—Knights of the Round Table (1953) was their first in CinemaScope, the anamorphic process that revolutionized the way motion pictures are seen and heard. The only non-Fox CinemaScope release of 1953, the year the process debuted, Knights of the Round Table is a drab, nearly charmless film that, quite unlike Fox’s earliest ‘scope films, fails to take full advantage of the new screen shape.
For their first CinemaScope production, MGM opted to follow-up their hugely successful Ivanhoe (1952), which earned nearly $11 million against a budget of $3.8 million. That film, directed by Richard Thorpe, starred Robert Taylor with cinematography by Freddie Young and music by Miklós Rózsa, all returning for Knights of the Round Table.
The film plays like a Classics Illustrated adaptation of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, with Arthur Pendragon (Mel Ferrer), Merlin (Felix Aylmer), Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay (Anne Crawford), and her lover, Modred (Stanley Baker) squabbling over whom shall rule post-Roman Empire Britain. Arthur’s ease at removing Excalibur notwithstanding, Modred wants the crown for himself and goes to war with Arthur, the latter soon joined by Sir Lancelot (Robert Taylor), Percival (Gabriel Woolf) and his sister Elaine of Corbenic (Maureen Swanson), Gawaine (Robert Urquhart), and the Green Knight (Niall MacGinnis).
After defeating Modred, King Arthur refuses to banish him despite Lancelot’s urgings and, indeed, he and Morgan le Fay continue to plot against Arthur, hoping to usurp the thrown by exposing the love Guinevere (Ava Gardner), Arthur’s queen, feels for Lancelot.
For such an irresistibly compelling story, it’s surprising that no completely satisfying film has been made of the Arthurian legend. (John Boorman’s Excalibur comes closest but has problems of its own.) Knights of the Round Table’s shortcomings stem from a combination of flaccid direction by Richard Thorpe, a routine, Cliffnotes-like screenplay by Talbot Jennings, Jan Lustig, and Noel Langley, and some of the casting. The stilted, unnatural dialogue is part of the problem; when wounded, for instance, the Green Knight declares, “I’ve blustered my last blust!” Made at the height of the McCarthy era by the most conservative of movie studios, Knights of the Round Table is overly religious—the holy grail shoehorned into the plot—with everyone crossing themselves at its every mention, which becomes unintentionally funny after a while.
Mel Ferrer and Robert Taylor were never favorites of this reviewer. Ferrer was always a cold, distant actor, capable, but utterly lacking in warmth, seemingly a requirement for the part of King Arthur, who partly through force of will his warm personality holds his tenuous kingdom and knights of the round table together. Likewise, Lancelot loves Arthur and all he stands for as much as he loves Guinevere, but Robert Taylor, with his cold, steely-blue eyes and unwelcoming features and stern line delivery, accentuated as he became middle-aged, work against him here.
That neither actor is British is less of a distraction than one would imagine, but Ava Gardner does come off as too singularly American and contemporary, though she’s undeniably gorgeous. As in other MGM productions shot in Britain, the studio’s casting department chose less than ideal actors for many of the parts. Felix Aylmer as Merlin, Anne Crawford as Morgan le Fay, Maureen Swanson as Elaine, etc. are all serviceable but not much more than that. Given the pool of great British talent available in 1953, only Niall MacGinnis’s Green Knight makes a strong impression among the supporting parts. Stanley Baker is excellent, rising above the script’s shallowness, but even he was a last-minute replacement for George Sanders, a too obvious and too old casting choice.
The pageantry is occasionally impressive, but the battle and fight scenes are tamely bloodless, frequently with stuntmen obligingly allowing themselves to be “stabbed” below the armpit between their torso and arm. The knightly swords of the period were heavy (around two-and-a-half pounds) broad-sword affairs, yet in the film the tips wobble like rapiers.
Director Richard Thorpe was a journeyman director of no discernible style beyond getting things done as quickly as possible. On their previous collaboration, Ivanhoe, Freddie Young recalled, “Dick Thorpe was the favorite director at MGM because he always finished on schedule. He made a point of it... close-ups in the finished film were quite arbitrary, depending on the pure chance of the interruptions in shooting on that particular day. Thorpe never reshot anything. That’s how he beat the schedule. For a cameraman it was boring as hell.” All this may explain the point-and-shoot approach to Knights, with zero advantage taken composition-wise of the CinemaScope format.
Filmed on Eastman Color stock, like many of the earliest CinemaScope titles, Knights of the Round Table has focus and distortion (CinemaScope “mumps”) issues that Warner Archive can only correct so much. At times the image, in 2.55:1 widescreen, is sharp and primary colors are strong, but the presentation is still inherently a little weak compared to later ‘50s ‘scope films. The 2.0 DTS-HD stereo surround, however, is impressively robust, with directional effects and Miklós Rózsa’s score coming through, all the more impressive as this is a reconstruction of the original 4-track magnetic stereo elements, now lost. Optional English subtitles are provided on this Region-Free disc.
The better-than-usual supplements, largely from the earlier DVD release, consist of an introduction to the film by Mel Ferrer; newsreel footage of the film’s premiere; MGM Jubilee Overture, in full HD / 2.55:1 and running just under 10 minutes, this footage of MGM’s orchestra performing music from the studio’s biggest (though mostly recent) hits is similar to the prologue to Fox’s How to Marry a Millionaire to show off the stereophonic sound. Also included is the Cinemascope cartoon One Droopy Knight, also in high-def, and an especially long trailer.
Unlike many early CinemaScope titles, Knights of the Round Table hasn’t aged well at all, and given the talent involved, should have been much better than it is. However, film buffs may still want to see it for historical reasons, and Warner Archive deserves credit for making the picture look as good as it possibly can.
- Stuart Galbraith IV