A Masterpiece!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Having just watched back-to-back two version of Gawain and the Green Knight, that of Stephen Weeks (1973) and that of David Rudkin/John Phillips (1991) it seemed like a good idea to write one review covering both. The difference is basic and simple: Rudkin's is a faithful and highly literate rendering of the text, while Weeks's is more of a fun romp based loosely on the same material. I find both equally enjoyable in their different ways, and can't understand the opprobrium heaped on the 1973 version. It's charming and delightful, with nice music and graphics, and features some great one-off (if over the top) performances from the likes of Nigel Green (who seemed born to play his namesake the Green Knight), Geoffrey Bayldon and Murray Melvin. Both benefit from some marvellous Welsh locations with which I am very familiar. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages I have in appreciating it is the fact that I'm probably the only person in the world who has never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and has no intention of ever doing so. Rudkin's more earnest and serious screenplay, with its hypnotically alliterative iambs, has made me want to go back and reread the original.

These reviews heighten my need to get hold of a copy of this film. I've been looking for it ever since the videotape was invented, hoping to relive the glorious three weeks spent as an extra on Gawain and the Green Knight during my art-school days in Cardiff Wales. Costumes? how can you criticise chain mail knitted from silver sprayed string? Combat scenes? bad acting! I was personally involved in hand to hand combat with Murray Head! Awful scenery? Don't let the Welsh hear that.. mainly Cardiff and Caerphilly castles. Terrible SFX? How about covering the set in artificial snow only to have to delay filming because it snowed for real. A masterpiece.

This film version of one of the Arthurian legends is badly done, with cheesy special affects, stagey acting and a green knight with an enormous green-tinted wig and false beard that must be seen to be believed. All I can say is that the members of Monty Python MUST have seen this before they sat down to write The Holy Grail (Gawain was released in England 2 years prior), and decided to make fun of it.

I managed to catch this movie on cable yesterday afternoon. Yeah, sure, it stinks, but it was made in 1973, so whaddaya want?I would not be surprised, however, if this movie was the inspiration for many of the scenes in Monty Python's Holy Grail. There are many small similarities, and while watching this movie you can just hear the Python troupe's twisted gears turning in their heads."wouldn't it be funnier if Sir Gawain was wandering in a forest and then came across a castle of virgins...?"