Short-sleeved blacksmith John dons short-sleeved armour to secretly help King Arthur to defeat a reverse crusade by Saracens aided by the duplicitous King of Cornwall.
Alan Ladd is John, the token box office draw American in a colourful knights in armour romp of dubious likeliness. The plot is serviceable, the British players, pros one and all, are good, and Ladd is as wooden as a mahogany plank.
The action is frequent and not bad, albeit very non-graphic in a 1950s way. At times the same sequence of shots repeats so quickly that it is quite obvious that it has been used twice. The many castles are beautifully glass-painted and the scenery alternates between nicely authentic and horribly inauthentic.
And there is a Druidic ceremony/knees-up at Stonehenge which is hilarious. We get to see the full, complete Stonehenge before men on horses with ropes topple various upright rocks to make sure the place can never be used for such wickedness again!
I bet this was the biz back in 1954. Nowadays, it comes across as well-dressed, but amateurish.
Alan Ladd is John, the token box office draw American in a colourful knights in armour romp of dubious likeliness. The plot is serviceable, the British players, pros one and all, are good, and Ladd is as wooden as a mahogany plank.
The action is frequent and not bad, albeit very non-graphic in a 1950s way. At times the same sequence of shots repeats so quickly that it is quite obvious that it has been used twice. The many castles are beautifully glass-painted and the scenery alternates between nicely authentic and horribly inauthentic.
And there is a Druidic ceremony/knees-up at Stonehenge which is hilarious. We get to see the full, complete Stonehenge before men on horses with ropes topple various upright rocks to make sure the place can never be used for such wickedness again!
I bet this was the biz back in 1954. Nowadays, it comes across as well-dressed, but amateurish.