I cavalieri della tavola rotonda

When I used to teach world history, I invariably got questions such as "When are we going to learn about King Arthur?"...and invariably I had to explain to my students that there was no Arthur...at least when it comes to history. And, because there are many different fictional accounts of Arthur and his reign, the studio had lots of room to craft whatever sort of story they wanted...provided, of course, they included the familiar Arthurian characters.

I have an odd confession. Although I love history and have enjoyed such films as "Ivanhoe", "The Vikings" and "Robin Hood", I am not a huge fan of medieval costume dramas. I find, generally, they are pretty dull affairs...with too much emphasis on costuming and stilted dialog. Heck, my favorite Arthurian film is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"! Keep this in mind as you read the rest of my review.

The film is the story of Sir Lancelot (Robert Taylor) and his career from joining King Arthur to saving Guinevere from captivity to marriage to betraying the king. It's all very familiar stuff if you are acquainted with the legends.

So is it any good? Yes and no. The costumes are nice and one of the horse battles is really nice. But it's also very cold and the dialog very dull and stilted....as I pretty much expected. I give it five stars simply because it looks nice....period.