As I suspected, I spent this weekend focused on my Netflix (the result of being broke 🙂 ). Just not in the way I planned. Initially I wanted to catch up on some film noir – instead I got caught up in playing ‘catch up’ with the television series Merlin.
Let me just state for the record: this is family entertainment at its core. It is not the highest form of art, true, but I enjoyed the series enough to remain engaged.
But what it did do is get me thinking – the Arthurian legend is something that has also fascinated me in print but has that translated to the screen? I began to dig a little deeper …
After examining a list of films based on the stories of King Arthur, I noticed that I have seen a handful of films, including:
- A Connecticut Yankee (1931); based on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- A Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995); same as above
- The Sword in the Stone (1963)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
As you can see by this list, with the exception of Monty Python, all of the titles are family orientated films. The conclusion I draw is that I have a lot of catching up to do with Arthur-related movies. This is where you, the reader comes in … what are some of your favorite movies which center on the legend of King Arthur?
ruth says
June 25, 2012 at 2:47 pmHmmm, good question, I don’t know which movie I like best about King Arthur. What’s that one w/ Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave? I thought that was pretty good. I didn’t really like King Arthur w/ Clive Owen, despite such a hunky leading man.
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iluvcinema says
June 25, 2012 at 3:03 pmCamelot 🙂
Always took care to give King Arthur w/ Clive a miss 🙂
ruth says
June 27, 2012 at 12:56 pmAh, that’s it! Richard Harris actually sang in the movie, he has a pretty good voice.
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Sergio (Tipping My Fedora) says
June 25, 2012 at 4:12 pmInteresting topic Iba – I’ve been trying to get my nieces to watch the MERLIN series (they are 7 but have great taste – they are devoted to DOCTOR WHO) but without great success so far.
I would say that the big omission here is John Boorman’s film EXCALIBUR which certainly takes an ‘adult approach – it looks great and has a great soundtrack. Some of it is a bit silly perhaps, but it is full of good things and was pretty influential I think in the renaissance of sword and sorcery films in the 80s.
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iluvcinema says
June 25, 2012 at 4:22 pmCool stuff. Will look out for it.