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n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

In his novel "The Lyre of Orpheus" the Canadian writer Robertson Davies made the point that although the Arthurian legend had played an immensely influential role in the history of English literature, there had never been a particularly distinguished dramatic treatment of the story, either in the theatre or in the cinema. (Davies discounts Purcell's opera on the grounds that its plot differs radically from what we have come to think of as the Arthurian story). And yet the story seems to offer great dramatic possibilities, both in its adventure elements and in the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle. "Knights of the Round Table" was the second in an unofficial trilogy of films on a mediaeval theme made by producer Pandro S. Berman and director Richard Thorpe, all of which starred Robert Taylor. (The others in the trilogy, both based on the novels of Sir Walter Scott, were Ivanhoe and The Adventures of Quentin Durward). It is based upon Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", although it makes some changes. The Quest for the Holy Grail plays a less important role in the film than in the book,   Elaine is Lancelot's wife rather than his lover, and their son Galahad, who plays a key role in the book, only appears as a baby. Apart from Lancelot and the villain Mordred (here referred to as "Modred"), the most prominent of the knights is Sir Percival, in this version Elaine's brother. The film is ostensibly set in the Britain of the 5th or 6th century, after the end of the Roman occupation, but as is usual in films on this theme (the recent "King Arthur" being an exception) the costumes, armour and buildings are all based upon those of the High Middle Ages, that is to say of Malory's day rather than of Arthur's. Arthur's kingdom is always referred to as "England", even though the historic Arthur (assuming that he was a real person) would never have used this term. The Celts would always have referred to "Britain", the name "England" ("Land of the Angles") being used only by their Anglo-Saxon enemies. The story begins with Britain in turmoil, divided among various warring overlords. Arthur, the illegitimate son of the former ruler Uther Pendragon, is able to unite the kingdom and, with the help of Lancelot and the wizard Merlin, to defeat his main challengers, his half-sister Morgan Le Fay and her son Modred. (Anne Crawford who plays Morgan was only eight years older than Stanley Baker, who plays her son. Presumably the explanation is that Morgan's enchantments have been able to preserve her youthful looks, and things could have been worse. The original choice for Modred was George Sanders, fourteen years older than Crawford). After his victory Arthur pardons Morgan and Modred, against Lancelot's advice, but they continue to plot against him, and see the growing attraction between Lancelot and Arthur's wife Guinevere as their chance to make trouble. One of the problems with Arthurian films and plays is that the love- triangle is so central to the plot that it requires three high-quality performances if it is to succeed. Taylor here makes an attractively dashing Lancelot, although the film misses one of the key themes of Malory's work. In Malory Lancelot, an otherwise ideal knight, is morally compromised by his adulterous affair with Guinevere, but in this version their love is not physically consummated, possibly in order to keep the censors happy, and the result is that he seems a much less morally ambiguous figure. The film tries to contrast the "flawed" Lancelot with the idealised Percival, but Lancelot's flaws seemed to me very minor ones. Arthur is another complex character, difficult to realise on screen, because he is on the one hand a powerful, heroic monarch and on the other someone compromised by his status as a cuckold. In mediaeval literature cuckolds were generally seen as weak, pitiable or ridiculous, like Alison's husband in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale". Probably the best screen Arthur I have seen was Sean Connery in "First Knight", but that film subtly altered the traditional tale by making Arthur much older than Guinevere or Lancelot. Here Arthur comes across as a forgettable nonentity when he should be at the film's centre, and this is due partly to the wooden acting of Mel Ferrer and partly to the sanitising of the Lancelot/Guinevere relationship which also removes much of the interest from Arthur's character. As for Ava Gardner, she certainly makes a lovely Guinevere, but she was capable of much better acting than this. (As, for example, in "The Barefoot Contessa" the following year). Baker is not bad as Modred, but I think that Sanders, who had been so effective as Brian de Bois-Guilbert in "Ivanhoe", would have been better. The film is visually attractive, with much emphasis on pageantry and spectacle, but I did not enjoy it as much as "Ivanhoe". (I have never seen "Quentin Durward"). It is certainly better than the dull and turgid "King Arthur", but the problems with characterisation made me aware just why it can be so difficult to make an effective Arthurian drama and to understand what Robertson Davies may have meant by his dictum. 6/10

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.

Reasonably enjoyable swashbuckler which however fails to hit the heights of the genre, due, if anything, to a lack of real star-power in the lead roles. An attempt to cash in on Robert Taylor's previous success in "Ivanhoe" and shot on location in and around Britain, it never feels large-scale enough to convince that it's dealing with something as important as the power-struggle to rule a country.The location work is impressive enough and provides variety in avoiding the more usual back-projections or set-bound stagings of similar films, but too often the big fight scenes just look like a modern-day recreation of battle, with lots of ardent amateurs dressed up in period clothes hitting each other with fake weaponry. In addition, there just aren't enough of them either, the fate of the nation apparently being contested by armies in the dozens rather than what should have been a more realistically pitched hundreds or thousands.The episodic story is engaging, taking in the requisite aspects of chivalry, courage and romance, although despite figuring prominently in the first half of the feature, the character of Merlin displays precisely no powers of magic or even intrigue, instead being reduced to a sort of elderly statesman and adviser to the king, lessening his impact considerably.As King Arthur, Mel Ferrer is pretty wooden and Robert Taylor, in the central role of Launcelot, does appear too old for the part and acts pretty one-dimensionally throughout, likewise Ava Gardner as the weakening Queen Guinnivere. Better is Staney Baker as the treacherous Mordred but his character could have been given more prominence, I felt.On the whole, the film was entertaining enough but fails to achieve the top rank of Hollywood period action-romances, for which it too strenuously strives.

MGM's foray into CinemaScope is a lavish thing to behold--the costumes are as bright as anything that ever came from the costume department, the swords are flashy, the settings are photographed with loving care and artistic ability although they're suspiciously paper-mache in some instances. And the romantic triangle inherent in all of King Arthur's tales is represented by AVA GARDNER at her most beautiful but pallid and remote, ROBERT TAYLOR as Sir Lancelot in an underwhelming performance and MEL FERRER, whom I found equally colorless as King Arthur. The most vigorous performance in the film comes from STANLEY BAKER as the villainous and scheming Mordred and by GABRIEL WOOLF as Percival, who recites his lines with Shakespearean flourish.All of them are victims of some banal dialog and uninspired direction by Richard Thorpe, who did an equally unimpressive job on IVANHOE, an uneven spectacle that shared a lot in common with the background and characters of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD but paled in comparison.The film moves from one set piece to another without any style or pace except for careful placement of actors to fill the widescreen process. Miklos Rozsa must have found it difficult to find inspiration for writing music, but he does manage to fulfill his end of the bargain with a serviceable enough score even when the action on screen is not up to the standards one expects in these sort of costume adventures.Taylor seems bored with his role and Gardner often looks as though she's far away in her thoughts, although she has seldom looked more beautiful as Guinivere. I never was particularly fond of the Arthurian legend so I have to confess to an initial bias that persisted as I watched the film unfold at its leisurely length.For adventure and romance, there are hundreds of other better examples than this, a film that never really comes to life.