King Arthur, the Young Warlord

As a child of the 70s, I've never seen this series on American TV (reruns that is, I was born in '72) - and I would have watched it!! My understanding this is a BBC TV series from '72-'73. I am happy to see the edited/abridged version put into a film - it's pretty good.

This is a gritty take on the tale, more realistic than the high polished, well rehearsed fight scenes that most films of this nature have. Realistically speaking, real mean would not have been like "superheroes" as they usually try to make them out as in films today. This film cuts past all that fancy, flashy stuff and gives more realism to the action. Film makers today need to realize that "heroes" are not suppose to be comic book "superheroes" - two different things all together.

Nice little film that I'm enjoying watching as I type this review.

9/10

1st watched 3/5/2022 - 4 out of 10 (Dir - ???): Documentary-style beginning of a telling of a young King Arthur who tries to bring together warring lands into one peaceful union of southern part of what we now call England. He uses unusual means including the tactful retreat(run-away per Monty Python fame), and other shrewd methods that are not the most noble. This movie is actually a compilation of BBC television programs pasted together into a movie, and it comes across that way sometimes with each episode intertwined by dialogue. Arthur begins the movie as a chieftain with a few loyal friends. The other lands are feuding with them initially, and he brings them together to fight one enemy. His methods are at many times deceitful, which kind of turned me against him. Examples include one episode where he messes up a marriage to get more land, and another one where he promises treasure where there isn't any to get help to rescue his friends. This may work for a sitcom, but not a historical movie. This one is to bypassed if you don't want to learn terrible ways to be a leader.

Since this film has begun to appear on cheap DVD compilations, I feel it my duty to warn the potential viewer of the following: 1. This film was clearly made as a pilot for a television show which I don't believe ever made it to the home entertainment center.

2. This film has nothing to do with the King Arthur of legend.

3. This film has nothing to do with any possible historical King Arthur.

4. This film has nothing to do with either the Dark Ages, or the Middle Ages.

5. The dialog is just one long recital of every "swashbuckler" cliché in film history.

6. The actors are very unprofessional and very hammy.

7. The story is absurd and absurdly directed. No wonder the actors didn't perform well - given such weak material, who could? 8. The sets were cheaply tossed together, the camera work is shoddy, the editing poor, the costumes a laughable conglomeration of fashions from different time periods, and the action sequences unbelievable and confusingly filmed.

Follow the example of TV execs who here made one of their better decisions: reject this film.

I saw this years ago (the early 80's) on The Movie Channel and was hooked on it. Decades later, they've put it out on DVD and I've found it to be almost as good as I remembered thinking it was back then.

The only drawback that some might find with this movie is that it was never really a movie and doesn't play like one. Like with some of Gerry Anderson's shows, this was a "movie" that was pulled together for international release by using stand alone episodes from the TV series Arthur of the Britons and covers a fair stretch of that show's run. This means that the movie, if looked at as a whole, seems to bounce around a bit because it is made up of several story arcs that begin and end in under 30 minutes before jumping into the next one. It also suffers from the same budget issues that many shows coming out of England from the early 70's faced.

Beyond that, it's actually very well done. The stories stand up well and they pulled some good episodes from the series to make this. The wedding story alone, and Brian Blessed's fantastic work in it, are worth the price of the DVD.

You can find the DVD all over the web for low prices. Grab it, it's worth it.

The "true account" of the tribal wars of ancient England. In minuscule budget.

King Arthur fights saxons, picts and whatnot in this watchable little flick. Lots of effort has been put into sets, mainly in pouring shedloads of mud on the ground. It's not the great adventure you'd expect, but as it delivers it's peaceful message towards the end at least I wanted to believe it.

Released on video in Finland in the early eighties.