rogerblake-281-718819 Cornel Wilde started his career as a matinée idol specializing in romantic and swashbuckling roles,later going on to direct his own films.Some are best forgotten but films like "The Naked Prey" and "Beach Red" are cult classics.Lancelot and Guinevere,his take on the Camelot legend,while not an unqualified success is by no means a bad film,what does however stretch ones credibility is the ages of some of the leading players. Cornel Wilde who played Lancelot, although still fit and muscular looking, was pushing fifty.Likewise his real life wife Jean Wallace who played Guinevere was in her forties.Although still an attractive woman no amount of soft focus photography could disguise the fact.For reasons best known to himself Wilde decided to portray Lancelot as a french man so he dusted off the accent he perfected in "Centennial Summer" and "The Greatest Show On Earth",one wonders if that was the inspiration for Peter Sellers role as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films.Yes its that bad.The love scenes were considered quite explicit for the time but they come across today as more tasteful than erotic.The whole film is down to earth with no magic or mysticism and certainly no Excalibur.Merlin spends his time inventing a wondrous new substance called soap.Indeed is it a product placement opportunity for Proctor and Gamble? After this there is precious little humour to be found.Wilde uses a good second eleven team of British actors such as Brian Aherne,George Baker,Archie Duncan,Adrienne Corri,Reginald Beckworth,Richard Thorpe,Graham Stark and John Barrie.They all do sterling work but not enough to interest "Oscar".Also the editing is a little abrupt at times perhaps due to budget restraints.Wilde really comes into his own in the battle scenes which are quite spectacular courtesy of the Yugoslavian Army who enter into the spirit with gusto.For those who like looking for goofs watch out for the two extras who thought they were off camera having a crafty smoke with arrows sticking out all over them.The eagle eyed may also notice the odd wristwatch.At the beginning and end of the film there are two particularly bloody hand to hand combat scenes which leave one in no doubt as to the effectiveness of medieval weaponry.For all that by far the best sequence in the film is when Wilde and his men rescue a Saxon village which has been captured by Vikings,it certainly doesn't pull its punches especially in the scene where the village women, who have been violated, watch with grim satisfaction as their attackers are slaughtered to a man.In this reviewers opinion a far superior scene than anything you will find in "The Vikings".Everybody knows the plot,the doomed love affair,the destruction of Camelot and Guinevere finishing up in a nunnery,all very sad.One wishes they could make a version where they all live happy ever after.Come on it is only a fairy tale.Finally I would like to doff my hat to the young lady who plays the french serving maid,her heroic cleavage would not be out of place in a Russ Meyer film,it made for a pleasant interlude among all the doom and gloom.It certainly made a big impression on me as a spotty teenager when I first saw the film.

classicsoncall I've never been a fan of the medieval knight genre, and this one manages to reinforce my feelings. I just couldn't tell what they were going for in the story, and abrupt scene changes often occurred on a dime with no time at all allotted for the transition. Like early in the picture with news of King Leodogran's challenge to Arthur for each of their champions to meet in duel to decide Arthur's status as King. No sooner said than done, Sir Lancelot (Cornel Wilde) is atop a horse and going hell bent for leather against Sir Dorjak.Others on this board have mentioned the ages of the principals, something I wondered about myself. It was a little hard to fathom Lady Guinevere (Jean Wallace) looking her true age representing a King's daughter about to be betrothed. Kind of makes you glad they had that magic soap around.The one thing the film had going for it was the realistic battle scenes, with body blows taking on a gruesome countenance. The scene where Lancelot separates a warrior's shoulder was particularly graphic. At the same time though, my earlier comment applies as well to the final epic battle. At one point we see Lancelot right in the thick of things swinging away with his sword, and a minute later he's perusing the battle field from a distant vantage point as different sets of warriors enter the fray; it almost looked like there were more than two fronts to the battle.And say, what accent was Cornel Wilde going for? His character was French, but he sounded more like Russian to me. That is, when he wasn't sounding like something else altogether. I don't know, the picture just didn't do it for me, and with all that went before to test the mettle of the besieged lovers, Guinevere becomes a nun? Her speech might have been noble but not very convincing. Alas poor Lancelot, as capable as he was on the battlefield, this was one blow he never saw coming.

geemanrocks Well they sure don't make films like this anymore and I agree with the comment this film rocks! The battle scenes alone were way ahead of there time with gore and spectacle. It was the first time I had ever seen a man cut in half by a sword. It shocked me! I saw this film for the first time when I was a kid and it has stayed with me through the years. It has solid acting by Cornel and cast. Indeed when I think of the Lancelot I don't think anyone portrayed the medieval knight better. This was one of the movies that once you started watching it you where glued to the screen. A great period piece. If you have seen this movie and enjoyed Cornel's acting the films The Naked Prey and Gargoyles (a made for TV movie) definitely made a splash !

inspectors71 Cornel Wilde should be awarded an "E" for effort in The Sword of Lancelot, a gabby, murkily photographed, and surprisingly bloody King Arthurer from 1962. Wilde as Lancelot sports a dandy little French accent that reminded me of the guy in the tower in Monty Python's The Holy Grail while he fights for the king, until he gets all gushy over the lovely Jean Wallace as Guinevere.There is quite a bit of long-looking and love-talking and smooching between the real-life couple (and a tightly shot post-coital embrace with the two drippy and funky; boy, what did the folks at the Production Code think of that?), but after a good while, you're starting to grumble at the screen to GET ON WITH IT, whatever it might be.The battles swing from the hokey to the excitingly bloody. You don't see many guys get their heads split down the middle in American movies in 1962, and Wilde does stage a couple of well-thought-out sequences, so there is some benefit to sitting through the kiss-kiss to get to the clang-clang.The whole Arthurian legend is such an appealing story that even though Wilde has two strikes against him--a budget equivalent to pocket change (the film quality is so bad, I honestly checked my glasses to see if they needed cleaning) and the fact that most everyone involved looks a good generation too old for the story--he still brings some real love and passion to the screen.Which is why The Sword of Lancelot should be taken at face value, and even though Jean Wallace is pushing forty in the picture (too mature for a maiden), all I can say is, "What a face!"