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Rating: G
Director: Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, David Hand
Writers: Bill Peet (screenplay), T.H. White (source material)
Stars: Rickie Sorensen, Karl Swenson, Sebastian Cabot, Junius Matthews
Release Date: June 21, 1964
Run time: 1 hour, 19 minutes
THE PLOT:
via wiki
After the King of England, Uther Pendragon, dies without an heir to his throne, a sword magically appears inside an anvil atop a stone, with an inscription proclaiming that whoever removes it will be the future king. Many have unsuccessfully attempted to remove the sword, and the sword becomes forgotten, leaving England in the Dark Ages.
Years later, a 12-year-old orphan named Arthur, commonly called the Wart, accidentally scares off a deer his older foster brother Kay was hunting, causing Kay to launch his arrow into the forest. While retrieving the arrow, Arthur meets Merlin, an elderly wizard who lives with his talking pet owl Archimedes. Merlin declares himself Arthur’s tutor and returns with him to his home, a castle run by Sir Ector, Arthur’s foster father. Ector’s friend, Sir Pelinore, arrives to announce that the winner of the upcoming New Year’s Day tournament in London will be crowned king. Ector decides Kay will be a contender and appoints Arthur as Kay’s squire.
To educate Arthur, Merlin transforms them both into fish. They swim in the castle moat to learn about physics, until an angry pike attacks the pair. After the lesson, Arthur is sent to the kitchen as punishment for attempting to relate what happened to Ector and Kay. Merlin enchants the dishes to wash themselves, then takes Arthur out again for another lesson.
For the next lesson, Merlin transforms them both into squirrels to learn about gravity. Arthur almost gets eaten by a wolf, but is saved by a female squirrel who falls in love with him. After they return to human form, Ector accuses Merlin of using black magic on the dishes. Arthur defends Merlin, but Ector punishes Arthur by giving Kay another squire, Hobbs.
Resolving to make amends, Merlin plans on educating Arthur full-time, but Merlin’s knowledge of future history confuses Arthur, prompting Merlin to appoint Archimedes as Arthur’s teacher. Merlin transforms Arthur into a sparrow and Archimedes teaches him how to fly. Soon after, Arthur encounters Madam Mim, an eccentric, evil witch who is Merlin’s nemesis. Merlin arrives to rescue Arthur before Mim can destroy him, and Mim challenges Merlin to a wizards’ duel. Despite Mim’s cheating, Merlin outsmarts her by transforming into a germ and infecting her, illustrating the importance of knowledge over strength.
On Christmas Eve, Kay is knighted. When Hobbs comes down with the mumps, Ector reinstates Arthur as Kay’s squire, which spurs him to happily break the news to his teachers. Archimedes congratulates him, but Merlin, thinking Arthur is forsaking education, rebukes him for staying under Kay’s thumb. When Arthur retorts that he’s lucky, Merlin angrily transports himself to 20th-century Bermuda.
At the tournament, Arthur realizes he left Kay’s sword at the inn. It is closed for the tournament, but Archimedes sees the “Sword in the Stone”, which Arthur removes almost effortlessly, unknowingly fulfilling the prophecy. When Arthur returns with the sword, Ector recognizes it and the tournament is halted. Ector places the sword back in its anvil, demanding Arthur prove that he pulled it. He pulls it once again, revealing that he is England’s rightful king, earning Ector and Kay’s respect and the former’s apology.
Later, the newly crowned King Arthur sits in the throne room with Archimedes, feeling unprepared for the responsibility of ruling a country. Merlin returns from Bermuda and resolves to help Arthur become the great king he has foreseen him to be and ensure his legacy.
My Review
Before I review the movie, I must confess my inspiration for watching. I saw a clip online today of the Royal Guard playing music from Lord of the Rings (or so it said – you never know what’s real anymore with AI.) With apologies to King Charles, England is of course a country waiting for its king to return. As we all know, his name is Arthur. Anyway… on to the review.
The Sword in the Stone is a very kid-friendly and well told animated movie. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a relatively faithful adaptation of T.H. White’s King Arthur book of the same name, keeping a lot of the source material’s whimsy (I don’t use that word often) while smoothing out and removing some of the source material’s more macabre elements. The danger in the film includes a lot less wicked witch cannibalism (or at least that desire) from Madam Mim than the same from the book.
The movie is not a full-fledged musical, but includes a lot of musical numbers – in the style pretty standard for its time period. While I enjoyed the music, I don’t think any of the songs are stand-outs and the average person would likely not remember most of them. The movie was in line for Disney’s live-action update treatment, probably including some updated and improved music, but after the poor box office performance by Snow White, the project was indefinitely shelved.
The biggest flaw in the movie – at least for an adult fan of a King Arthur tale – is its runtime. The film is heavy on Merlin doing magic, and animal transformations, but pretty thin on story substance about the future King Arthur. That’s not entirely out of step with the book, but while the book had a long time to build up the Arthur tale in the background of other plot events, the movie has no such luxury. I will add though that while this movie may struggle to fulfil the desires of its adult audience, it is very well-suited for an audience of children – and I suspect that is the audience for whom it was written. (Feel free to read the book to your child if the movie left out too much detail.)
For the most part, I liked the aesthetic of the film, but the animation definitely looks dated. That wasn’t a problem for me, as the style spurred on some feelings of positive nostalgic, but for a younger viewer who has grown up with a more modern style of animation, it might look clunky, bad, or create boredom. If you want to introduce this to your kids, you might want to do so before you inundate them with a lot of the more modern fare.
I really enjoyed The Sword in the Stone. I would have liked a little bit more story, and maybe a slightly better musical score, but it was well-done and enjoyable on the whole.
Have you seen The Sword in the Stone? If so, what did you think?
I have not seen this movie, but I was just wondering the other day “didn’t the lady of the lake give Arthur Excalibur? Where does the sword in the stone come into play?”
This is one of those long running mysteries because the source material is 800 years old (maybe older), varied by geography, even the English language has changed a lot, and the various authors have been inconsistent.
Sometimes there are two different swords, with the one from the stone not having a name and the second one being Excalibur. Sometimes they are both called Excalibur. I think there’s a version where the sword form the Stone is called Clarent. But nobody really knows. I guess if the prophecy is fulfilled and Arthur returns, we’ll be able to ask him once he’s up to speed on modern English.
There’s a comic book I enjoyed called Planetary that leaned into “fabulous realism” such as when baby Superman came to earth the government found him and killed him before he became a threat to national security. If King Author came back I doubt he’d last long.
I think that how things go for Arthur depends on how Merlin fares in the present (and in the T.H. White version of events, Merlin lived backwards, so his “return” has already happened and it went well.) I definitely agree that they’d be targeted.