Knights of the Round Table - Warner Archive Collection

CinemaScope revolutionized the movie industry in 1953 when 20th Century-Fox premiered the format's inaugural feature, The Robe. Almost instantly, every major studio rushed to hop aboard the widescreen band wagon, and MGM followed Fox's lead by mounting an historical epic for its first CinemaScope picture. Like The Robe, Knights of the Round Table is a big, bloated spectacle that favors CinemaScope splendor over its narrative. The result is a movie that fills the eye, but ignores the brain and lacks heart.

With its swashbuckling swordfights, star-crossed romance, political skullduggery, and noble sacrifices, the Arthurian legend has captivated readers for centuries. What's fact and what's fiction is anyone's guess, which might explain Hollywood's endless fascination with the story. Numerous screen adaptations over the years have struggled to capture the yarn's elusive, fanciful mix of history, magic, and action without much success, although 1981's Excalibur comes close. Knights of the Round Table has its moments, but director Richard Thorpe's reliance on huge battle scenes and royal posturing ultimately renders the drama impotent.

This version of the story, which credits Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur as a source, chronicles the exploits of England's King Arthur (Mel Ferrer) and his closest ally Sir Lancelot (Robert Taylor), the quintessential knight in shining armor. The two fight to unify England after the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 5th century and foil the efforts of Arthur's jealous, vindictive half-brother Modred (Stanley Baker) to seize power. Lancelot's unrequited love for Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere (Ava Gardner), complicates matters and rocks the country's fragile foundation.

How a tale so rich in conflict and emotion can spawn such a dull film is hard to fathom, but somehow Knights of the Round Table accomplishes that feat. Visually, the movie isn't half bad. Some impressively mounted battle and jousting scenes (one of which features a super-long tracking shot worthy of Martin Scorsese), the English and Irish locations, and colorful costumes and military regalia nicely fill the massive CinemaScope canvas, but whenever the actors open their mouths things go south. That's not due to poor performances, but rather a stiff, formal, passionless screenplay that strives for Shakespearean eloquence and elegance, but would embarass The Bard.

Part of the blame also falls on Thorpe's shoulders. I run fairly lukewarm on the journeyman MGM director who's known more for his efficiency than artistry. (The former is what got him the Knights of the Round Table job, as producer Pandro S. Berman wanted the film finished quickly so it could ride the lucrative CinemaScope wave before other studios could cash in.) Warner Archive has released a number of Thorpe films on Blu-ray of late - Two Weeks with Love, The Prisoner of Zenda, A Date with Judy - all of which are solid productions, but lack that little something extra that would make them stand out from the pack. Knights of the Round Table  is yet another example of the mediocrity that defines Thorpe's film canon.

Gardner didn't think much of the movie either. In her 1990 autobiography, she calls Knights of the Round Table "a typical piece of historical foolishness, with folks in shining armor...dashing across the screen and sticking each other in delicate places with horrible-looking pikes." Gardner, whose marriage to Frank Sinatra was crumbling at the time, also reveals that shortly before shooting began she discovered she was pregnant. Unwilling to bring a child into an unstable parental environment, she chose to have an abortion. Though she looks as beautiful as ever in Knights of the Round Table, her performance lacks the spark and allure that distinguish her best work. Whether her lethargy is a result of all the stress and strife in her personal life or merely a sketchily drawn role and bland script is difficult to determine, but Knights of the Round Table does not stand as one of Gardner's career highlights.

Or anybody else's. Taylor and Ferrer should have switched parts. The 42-year-old Taylor reportedly acknowledged he was too old to play Lancelot, and his maturity and world-weariness (not to mention his square-jawed acting style) would have better suited the beleaguered yet stoic Arthur. Though Gardner claims Taylor was "a former beau" and the two co-starred twice before (in The Bribe and Ride, Vaquero!), their chemistry in Knights of the Round Table is quite tepid, never rising anywhere close to the level of burning passion that's so often associated with Lancelot and Guinevere. The 36-year-old, lanky, wide-eyed Ferrer cuts a much more youthful and romantic figure, and though he adopts a regal, serious demeanor for his very believable portrayal of Arthur, it's hard not to continually imagine him in the more dashing role.

Aside from the iconic sword in the stone episode, the wizardry that's such a fun and fantastical element of the Arthurian legend is nowhere to be found here. Merlin (Felix Aylmer) is merely an aged advisor who serves little purpose, and instead of a sorceress, the conniving Morgan Le Fay (Anne Crawford) comes off as more of a typical Hollywood femme fatale. (Sadly, Knights of the Round Table would turn out to be the penultimate film for the lovely Crawford, who would die of leukemia three years later at the tender age of 35.) Grounding Knights of the Round Table more in reality takes away its singularity and lumps it into more generic territory. At times, it's hard to distinguish it from Ivanhoe, which was also shot in England, directed by Thorpe, stars Taylor, features Aylmer in a supporting role, and revolves around the exploits of knights. And if MGM could have arranged it, Robert Taylor's Ivanhoe leading lady Elizabeth Taylor and cast-mate George Sanders would have played Guinevere and Modred, respectively. (Taylor turned down the part and illness forced Sanders to withdraw.)

Despite all the location shooting, some of film's exteriors were shot on a soundstage, which lends those scenes a cheap, artificial look. (The recreation of Stonehenge is laughably bad.) That kind of by-the-numbers moviemaking often defines Knights of the Round Table, which struggles to set itself apart from the garden variety swashbuckler. Maybe MGM thought the novelty of CinemaScope would provide enough eye candy to distract viewers from that brutal fact - and maybe it did at the time - but 72 years and a bajillion widescreen movies later, Knights of the Round Table must be judged on its own terms, and in the end, despite all the color, pomp, and pageantry, it falls on its own sword.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Knights of the Round Table arrives on Blu-ray packaged in a standard case. Video codec is 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 and audio is DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo. Once the disc is inserted into the player, the static menu without music immediately pops up; no previews or promos precede it.

Knights of the Round Table was the first CinemaScope movie MGM ever made (and the first CinemaScope movie made by a studio other than 20th Century-Fox) and Warner Archive honors that milestone with a high-quality 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer that's struck from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative. Grain levels fluctuate a bit more than usual for a Warner Archive title, but the image always exudes a lovely film-like feel and faithfully honors the sumptuous cinematography of Stephen Dade and Freddie Young. (Young also photographed Ivanhoe and won three Oscars for three David Lean films - Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Ryan's Daughter.) Excellent clarity and contrast produce a vibrant picture that brims with fine detail. The ornate knight regalia, horse robes, and helmet plumes are all beautifully rendered.

Colors are bold and sumptuous - flashy reds, lush greens, baby blues, majestic golds, sunny yellows, and royal purples - and they're complemented by dense blacks and bright, crisp whites. Flesh tones appear natural and remain stable throughout, shadow delineation is quite good, a couple of lengthy tracking shots during cavalry charges resist motion blur, and sharp close-ups highlight facial hair, tears, and of course Gardner's glamor. Some scenes exhibit a bit of softness and some haloing afflicts an odd processed shot early in the movie, but these are minor quibbles. Early CinemaScope is often difficult to pleasingly render, but this transfer does a fantastic job and delivers an often eye-popping visual presentation that surely bests the 2003 DVD.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo track outputs sound fit for a king. Though not much separation could be detected across the front channels, the track exudes more fidelity and depth of tone than the era's mono recordings. A wide dynamic scale embraces all the highs and lows of Miklós Rózsa's stately score, and all the formal, stilted dialogue is clear, well prioritized, and easy to comprehend. Sonic accents like clanking swords and galloping horse hooves are distinct, there's plenty of rumbling bass during the charging cavalry scenes, and any age-related hiss, pops, or crackle have been erased. 

Most of the extras from the 2003 DVD have been ported over to this Blu-ray release. Warner Archive replaces the Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor short with an MGM Jubilee orchestral short and adds a CinemaScope cartoon.

• Introduction by Mel Ferrer (SD, 95 seconds) - The late actor who plays King Arthur talks about his affinity for the Arthurian legend in this 2003 introduction.
• Vintage Newsreel Footage (SD, 8 minutes) - In addition to a newsreel recap of the movie's gala premiere that features such stars as Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, Lana Turner, Lex Barker, George Murphy, and Rhonda Fleming arriving at the theater, a few celebrity interviews from the premiere are included. Reynolds, Elaine Stewart (whose escort for the evening is Santa Claus), Murphy, Sonja Henie, Fleming, and Virginia Mayo are among the celebs who stop and chat at the microphone.
• Vintage Short: MGM Jubilee Overture (HD, 10 minutes) - To celebrate MGM's 30th anniversary, this one-reel CinemaScope short employs the MGM Studio Orchestra to play 11 of MGM's greatest song hits, including "Singin' in the Rain," "Broadway Rhythm," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "The Trolley Song,""On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," and, of course, "Over the Rainbow." 
• Vintage Cartoon: One Droopy Knight (HD, 7 minutes) - This CinemaScope cartoon stars - you guessed it - Droopy Dog as Sir Droopalot, a knight determined to slay a dragon and marry a princess.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 4 minutes) - The film's original preview hypes CinemaScope and the tale's grandeur.

A couple of exciting sword fights and battle scenes bolster Knights of the Round Table, but the turgid drama and pompous presentation drag it down. Warner Archive's lush transfer struck from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative and remastered stereo soundtrack add luster to the CinemaScope presentation of this lavish epic, but if you're looking for a captivating chronicle of the Arthurian legend, you might try Excalibur instead. For Fans Only.