Movie Knights - Monty Python And The Holy Grail!

This month-long look at movie and comics featuring sword-wielding types such as King Arthur and his cronies would not be complete without a shoutout to the greatest Camelot movie ever made, and that's the funniest flick in the history of flicks -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is the absolute ideal marriage of material and talent, a cretinous bunch of over-educated British louts having a smack at the mightiest of British legends. The Pythons were excellent at pulling the pompous wool out of over-stuffed aspects of society and the hyper-serious considerations concerning the King Arthur legends were ripe for the predations of the Python clan. 

One thing that always bugs me a little when I squander my time watching a movie or reading a book or comic about kings and queens and knights and such is the easy acceptance on the part of all concerned of the absolute correctness of the situation at hand. A king is manifestly right because he is the son of the king before him and the nobility that maintain this hierarchy are showcased without qualm. 

Of course as modern people we know that such a social structure is inherently unfair to the vast majority of mankind and that in our more enlightened times we appear, on the surface at least, to desire structures which are fundamentally fairer and recognize the sameness of people. "Strong Men" come and eventually they go, but most see that dictatorship is not a long term solution to even the most heinous of social breakdowns. It's a patch at best and then of dubious value. For someone to ascend to the throne and ascribe that ascension to the handiwork of a god is outrageous to a truly modern mind. (Not that it doesn't stop some nutter from trying it on, as we've recently learned to our chagrin in my own United States.)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is infused throughout with a good and proper disdain for royalty and that wisdom informs the smartest gags and bits directly. The whimsical debate between Arthur and the "peasant" Dennis at the beginning always gets a laugh from me and sets up the absurdity of much of the rest of the movie. Later we "nobles" doing all manner of things which people are not supposed to do and assuming it right simply because they have a particular bloodline. But likewise rank stupidity of the common man is set afire time and again as the people are show to possess little true critical thinking power in a universe riddled with superstition. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an excellent movie for our times because it's about our times and not the mythic kingdom of Camelot, but rather the hectic world of modern London and beyond. 

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Camelot 3000!

I didn't participate in the glory of Camelot 3000 when it was first rolling out from DC, but I have had my copy for a very very long time and I fished it out of the stacks for another good reading after a few decades at minimum. 

And I must say I was both impressed and a wee bit taken aback by the contents. 

For a story of this implied depth, it reads very briskly and the events unfold with a staggering velocity. Perhaps I've just gotten used to more modern epics which spend time fondling character and evoking scene, but in this one you get to know some one just in time to see them hit a snag, and the battle against the invasion doesn't really seem to have much of a logic to it in the end. King Arthur has arisen and that gives the people hope and so the enemy is ultimately repelled. 

But I haven't touched on the main attraction of this work and that is the delicious artwork of Brian Bolland who gives us a sleek future world filled with handsome people and gibbering monsters. It's a bright shiny world and if I would make just one suggestion, I'd have added a bit more gloom to some of the sections to make them stand apart. 

Now this comic yarn was produced in the 80's and nowhere does that stand out more than the theme of Sir Tristan who is reincarnated as are many of King Arthur's more famous knights, but in Tristan's case he is revived in the body of a lovely woman. That his old flame Isolde is also brought back and still wants a relationship causes no end of drama. Tristan's sexual confusion, both internally and externally, might have been shocking stuff over forty years ago, but seems fascinating but not outrageous in the modern day. 

Probably the most memorable character is Morgan Le Fay who as delineated by Bolland is a tempting sexpot with only a single flaw, a mass of boils on her back from her many travails in both time and space. But she's a ferocious villain and so is her son, a character who is more thoroughly modern but no less deadly. 

This is a fun and compelling read, but it's easy to see why it hasn't achieved the iconic status of some of the other 80's epics that redefined comic book storytelling, and that's because it really good and not great. Camelot 3000 was the first in many ways, but being first is remarkable but doesn't change critical assessment of the story itself. 

Here are the rest of Bolland's memorable covers. 

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Movie Knights - Excalibur!

I've matured a bit since I first saw it on the big screen in 1981 but Excalibur at that time was a mighty movie which was filled with rough and rugged knights knocking the stuffing out of one another and hot chicks often in mostly nothing at all. A young man does not forget the first time he got see Helen Mirren's boobs. 

The acting in this one was a bomb burst of over-the-top and no one did it better than Nicol Williamson as Merlin who said his lines like no one else and I didn't know that at the time he and Mirren were arch foes which gave their performances an added heat. Lots of faces show up for the first time in this one for me such Liam Neeson and Patrick Stewart, both of course actors who will go on to dominate the pop culture. But through and through this movie is the vision of one man, and that's John Boorman. 

Boorman took Le Morte D'Arthur and hammered out a bold and virile rendition of the Camelot myth. His Uther as played by Gabriel Byrne is an utter villain, a ruthless rapist who is commanded by his passions with no thought of the future. Later the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere will echo this lack of control, though with softer tunes and with a greater sense of shared compassion. Excalibur is a movie that shows man rising up from lustful and violent barbarism and barely making it by the end. It takes the death of King Arthur (Nigel Terry) himself to bring about the transformation, he like Moses having brought his people to a circumstance he cannot and will not be able to share in.  

Excalibur is far from a perfect movie. I've always had a nickname for the Knights of the Round Table as the "Knights of Alcoa", their armor shining so very brightly it reminds me of the aluminum foil. The storytelling is disjointed in places and while I've adapted to that on subsequent viewings it left me a little confused in the beginning. All in all Excalibur is a potent movie that left a firm impression even after forty years. 

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Movie Knights - Knights Of The Round Table!

Knights of the Round Table from 1952 is exactly the kind of halting hulk of a movie I rather anticipated. I've gone a very long time in life without seeing what must seem a classic flick, but frankly I've never much cared for the acting of Robert Taylor who while a strikingly handsome man always seems a lunk to me in front of a camera. And in this movie he's an aged lunk to boot. 

This is a stolid adaptation of Malory's venerable Le Morte D'Arthur and does a credible job of hitting most of the anticipated sequences, save where it seems it felt a compulsion to keep Lancelot front and center at all times, even when the story left him behind, as much of it does. The simple fact that Taylor plays Lancelot explains it all and the American actor with an accent that lands on the ear like sharp bramble occupies too much of a story which ought really to be about a larger cast. But Hollywood will out and the core romance of Lancelot and Guinevere (played by the lovely Ava Gardner who seems equally off target in her acting choices) is the story they must tell. That said this is a rather passionless outing with the creators feeling a need to keep all the "good" characters exceedingly good and making the "bad" characters exceedingly bad. 

Among the bad guys is Modred, the lover and not son of the scheming Morgan Le Fey. Stanley Baker and Anne Crawford do pretty good jobs as the villains of the piece and are more compelling than the heroes, a sure sign the narrative is falling down into contrivance. We do get a blockbuster battle scene when Arthur must fight Modred to win the kingship, but the final battle between Modred's forces and Arthur's is remarkably unremarkable, a major failing of the story. Here the need to make Lancelot the center of the action robs Arthur (and the man who played him rather typically, Mel Ferrer) no opportunity to die in a manner suituable for a mythic king. Instead Lancelot steps into the role with little regard to the theme. 

The sad truth is that Taylor seems too young (and too American) for the role in the beginning, though he's about right by the end. Other standout performances in this one are Felix Alymer as Merlin and Niall McGinnis as "The Green Knight".  Most of the others, whether a Brit or otherwise feel wooden to me most of the time. This is a bloodless movie done in standard Hollywood stock style and that alas robs this movie of its chance to quicken the myths with a lively interpretation. 

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Movie Knights - Prince Valiant!

Just watched (again) the classic film Prince Valiant starring Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner and James  Mason. It's been a long time, not since I first picked up my copy. Here is my review from that time.

"Believe it or not, I've never ever seen the 50's Prince Valiant movie. For whatever reason it's never ever played TV around me, and the few times I remember seeing the VHS I never popped for it. But reading the original Hal Foster strips recently got me in the mood and I ordered up a copy of the DVD from Amazon. I got around to viewing it several days ago. 

"Now I watch movies on a smallish TV, and that clearly wasn't what this Cinemascope flick was meant to be seen on. In a wonderful letterbox, this looks fantastic. It's a wonderfully rich visual movie and coming fresh off the Foster originals, it's easy to see that they really worked to keep the look and feel of the comic strip intact on the movie. Robert Wagner is Valiant and he looks the part well enough. Hayden Sterling is Gawain and Janet Leigh is Aleta. The acting by this trio is pretty okay most of the time, but Wagner is uneven, while Sterling is really broad. Leigh is beautiful as is Debra Paget as Ilene her sister, and they both do adequate jobs. James Mason as "Sir Brack" is clearly though the best actor in this thing and he dominates the screen every time he shows up. The only actor on par with him is Victor McLaglen as Boltar who has few scenes, but choice ones. Aside from the indifferent acting, though the setting is magnificent and the epic scale of the storytelling really works most of the time. The sprawling battle in the Viking castle with Sligon is outrageous and captures the feel of the comic strip perfectly, with Valiant bouncing around with is creative battle techniques.

"This ain't a great movie, but it's a really lavish and crisp adaptation of the comic. I'd have to say it's one of the best and most accurate adaptations of a comic I've ever seen and I've seen nearly all of them. Highly recommended."

Now my updated opinion. I was very harsh on this film when I first watched it nearly a decade ago. No doubt because it failed to live up to my expectations in some way. When I watched it this time, armed with a bit more information about its making I came away much more impressed with both the staging and the acting. The most difficult thing to ignore is Robert Wagner in that "page boy" haircut, it's one of those visual elements that works on the illustrated page that fails apart a bit in the real world, but it is a key element of visually cueing the character of Valiant.  I appreciated the performances of Janet Leigh and James Mason much more this time, each bringing a reality to some larger than life roles. As much as I admire Sterling Hayden in other roles, his turn as Sir Gawain is still in my opinion a bit too broad to fit in with is colleagues.  What really popped for me on this viewing was the magnificent settings and the successful realization of Hal Foster's images from the famous comic strip. This movie did indeed look like the comic strip come to life in most respects and that's an exceedingly difficult thing to pull off. 

Generally I was much better pleased with this classic flick. Highly recommended. 

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