Knights of the Round Table (1953)
(On Cable TV, April 2021) I’m not going to be so bold as to say that Knights of the Round Table is a boring movie, but I will say that it is exactly what I could picture if someone said, “1950s colour take on the King Arthur mythos.” The tone, style and colours are all very specific to that time and the feeling is that you’ve already seen the film even if this is your first viewing. The pseudo-arch dialogue is about as self-important as the need for this British production to mythologize the Arthurian story, and the atmosphere of unreality is reinforced by a series of sets obviously built in-studio with wild colours and unconvincing props. It’s definitely a result of then-trendy design choices affecting the entire production — amusingly, I almost never criticize certain genres (musicals come to mind) for exactly the same characteristics, but historical fantasy is one area where the difference between now and then is especially striking and never to the 1950s’ advantage. If this review is thin on the substance of the film rather than how it’s presented, that’s not an accident — as I said, you’d probably familiar enough with the Arthurian mythos to imagine it very well poured in the 1950s mould, and that’s exactly what you get: Director Richard Thorpe understood that part of the assignment. More patient viewers may have fun comparing the results to other films with the same characters over the decades. As for myself, the result is too generic, with so few advantages over more modern takes that I’m likely to forget most of the film within days.
