Perfectly adorable

disgusting, overrated, pointless

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This is another one of those lavish 1950s historical epics that achieves visual beauty and grand action but cannot muster up a bit of audience involvement. The tragedies of the Lancelot and Guinevere affair and Arthur's kingdom are lost in this bland re imagining.The characters are thinly drawn and none of the actors emote even once. They all just read through the script flatly, not a shred of feeling to be found, Robert Taylor and Mel Ferrer being the worst offenders. The supporting actors steal the show.Once again, the music, costumes, and sets are nice, but good production values cannot save a mediocre movie.

I first saw this film as a twelve year old when you had a continuance performance and I literally had to be dragged from my seat by members of the local constabulary as my mother had reported me missing when I didn't turn up on the bus.What an experience for a young lad,knights in shining armour,jousting,battles and sword fighting.Heroes riding to the rescue of fair damsels,wrongs to be righted and villains to be thwarted,and all in glorious Technicolor and Cinemascope.I didn't go much on the lovey dovey stuff but at least it was kept within reason.I recently saw the film again,perhaps I am getting cynical in my old age because although it was still very entertaining I could see what a load of rubbish it really was.Fair play to the cast who take it all very seriously and an approving nod to Robert Taylor,Ava Gardner,Mel Ferrer and especially Stanley Baker,his villainous turn was something else.The best way to enjoy this film is to treat it as a cross between a Carry On film and an old fashioned English pantomime.It is meant to be pure entertainment and as Sam Goldwyn so aptly put it "Messages are for Western Union".Did such heroes as the Knights of the Round Table,Robin Hood and St George of merry England really exist? I would like to think so and if they didn't then they jolly well should have done.In these desperate times we could really use heroes such as these.Perhaps we should stick to Hollywood's version of the Middle Ages because the reality was vastly different.It was the age of the thumbscrew,the rack and the branding iron and as for methods of execution if you were impaled,burnt at the stake or hung,drawn and quartered you were probably lucky because imaginative magistrates could soon find other ways of having you dispatched.Just to add to the general misery you also had the plague and the black death.If you want to see a more realistic take on the Round Table Cornel Wilde's Lancelot and Guinevere is well worth a look.Finally if you have a strong enough stomach Vincent Price in The Witchfinder General gives a bleakly realistic view of late medieval England during the English civil war.Personally I think Hollywood's version of "merry" England is much more fun.

The Knights of the Round Table is standard G rated romantic fantasy. In the 1950's it was larger budget epic with scenes at places such as a recreated Stonehenge. Everyone wears clean colorful clothing. The lines are clearly enunciated like a stage play. The knights and ladies are quite chivalrous.One can also see how the Monty Python crew watched this film and found it quite silly. To listen to the way the actors and actresses speak to each other the way that they do makes one rolls ones eyes with laughter. Lancelot comes across the maiden Elaine in the woods. Elaine is just wandering the woods in her Barbie Doll fantasy mind. She is so young and virginal looking. She prayed for a knight to come and seep her away and "poof" Lancelot appears. So do 5 other knights for Lancelot to gleefully fight because, you know, that's what knights do. Of course the girl is virginally horny watching her brave knight fight; too bad it is the 1950's or we would be treated to some Zoot action in today's wold! (sigh) The parodies Monty Python worked into The Holy Grail are quite obvious.Take a chill pill and enjoy the ride.

In her memoirs,Ava Gardner wrote something like that: I had to make "knights ..." a historical farce (!) where I met again Robert Taylor with whom I had already made "the bribe" ;what Mrs Gardner did not write ,it's that she was ,without a doubt the most beautiful Guinevere in history.I sincerely believe that this film is largely underrated:is it because it was dwarfed by Boorman's "Excalibur" about thirty years ago?I'm not sure that Nicholas Clay and Cherrie Lunghi,who were /are very competent thespians ,had the aura ,the panache and the glamor Taylor and Gardner displayed in Thorpe's version."Knights.." is thoroughly enjoyable with a lovely finale and much knightly honor,a good supporting cast (Ferrer,Baker..) and a nice cinematography...Miss Gardner alone is worth the price of admission.