When Camelot was in technicolor.

[meganbmoore]

Knights of the Round Table is a 1953 technicolor movie loosely based on Mallory. The setting is 14th century and it focuses on Arthur and Lancelot’s eternal BFF-ness and Lancelot and Guinevere’s Epic And Doomed Love, and then tries to cram in as many brief references to everything else as it can around Morgana and Mordred (apparently unrelated) plotting.

Keeping in mind that I am notably, and often uncritically, fond of these old romantic historical movies  (And oftechnicolor!  It is so bright!  And pretty1  And...colorful!), despite their problems, it’s actually a pretty decent movie. It could have done with less trying to at least mention everything it could and focus more on the central plotline, but it worked.

It includes Elaine (This is important to me! Because most modern things exclude her, or if they do, don’t bother to develop her!) and goes with the version where she’s Lancelot’s wife and Galahad’s mother, and the Guinevere/Lancelot relationship is the “We shall be courtly love only! Courtly love! No more! Ok, just one ki---we misbehave once and that’s when everyone invades!?  What's with that?” sort.

Though, I found it quite jarring to have a blonde Morgana and a brunette Guinevere, I mean, I’ve both as brunettes before and fair haired Guinevere’s, but never a blonde Morgana!

A few contextless pictures:

The DVD appears to no longer be available in the US, but if you have NetFlix, it's available for both rental and streaming.