Camelot (1967)
Directed by Joshua Logan
The plot of his illegitimate son Mordred to gain the throne, and Guinevere's growing attachment to Sir Lancelot, threatens to topple King Arthur and destroy his "round table" of knights.
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What critics compared Camelot to
Redgrave brings her trademark wit and gravitas to the proceedings, and her onscreen reunion with Nero, whom she met on the set of "Camelot" (1967), is the film's emotional highlight.
And when Redgrave, the aging still beautiful Juliet, meets up again with her one time Romeo and we see that it is her real life love Franco Nero (the two originally met while filming Camelot in 1967) – the passion between the two is palpable and practically leaps off the screen.
That one of the Lorenzos here happens to be Franco Nero, her real-life husband (and Lancelot to her Guinevere in the 1967 film version of Camelot), adds a layer of art-imitating-life frosting to the cake.
For devotees of the 1967 film version of Camelot, it is a glorious treat to see Guenevere reunited with her Lancelot once again, 43 years later – a love that might even impress Romeo and Juliet themselves.
Well, here's another romcom with one dimensional characters in the foreground triangle, but this one's raised up a notch by glorious Italian locations and the regal warmth of Vanessa Redgrave searching for a lost love in a subplot which mirrors the actress's own (Redgrave had a son with her "Camelot" costar Nero back in 1969, but married him years later, in 2006).
Late in the going we’re treated to a reunion of Redgrave with Franco Nero, the Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s “Camelot,’’ and the ease with which these two portray mature passion is deeply touching.
Those who may remember the chaste renditions of Guinevere delivered by Julie Andrews on Broadway and Vanessa Redgrave in the screen adaptation of Camelot, will be shocked by this edition.
If you're looking for something closer to the Arthur legends, or if you just want to see some old-fashioned knights in shining armor rescuing fair damsels in distress, you might consider John Boorman's excellent "Excalibur" (1981), the best of the lot; or "Ivanhoe" (1952), "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), "Prince Valiant" (1954), "The Black Knight" (1954), "Sword of Lancelot" (1963), "Lancelot du Lac" (1974), "Sword of the Valiant" (1982), "First Knight" (1995), "Dragonheart" (1996), the musical "Camelot" (1967), or even the zany "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975).
In "The Gladiator," he's stalwart, muscled General Maximus, who becomes the favorite of frail Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris, looking as if he were floating out of "Camelot").
Marcus Aurelius, a haggard Richard Harris sounding a bit like the legendary king he played in Camelot, muses that "there once was a dream that was Rome."
Even the quiddities of marriage seem artificial when Hinds and Dench, racing toward Oscar nominations, slow-dance to “How to Handle a Woman” from Camelot , yet Branagh doesn’t indicate what Irishman Richard Harris’s then-recent film version might have meant to homefolk.
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In one of the high-octane film’s best and quietest moments, he visits Moriarty (played by Jared Harris, son of Richard Harris of “Camelot” and the original Dumbledore in the first Harry Potter movies) to ask whether they can agree to let Watson be free of any entanglement in the unpleasantness ahead.