MovieChat Forums > The Black Knight (1954) Discussion > A quite dreadful film

A quite dreadful film

posted 18 years ago by hooperroy2311
24 replies | jump to latest

How this film has managed to garner an average of 5.2 is quite beyond me. It is not cultishly bad in the manner of an Ed Wood film, it is simply slack and lazy film making of the worst kind. It has all the usual rubbish of mixing a legendary 5th. century king with Medieval knights, Saracens and Vikings but you can accept this. It is the complete lack of interest exhibited by everyone involved. Top British character actors such as Harry Andrews and Peter Cushing have to deliver lines of such total banality ( Bryan Forbes, what were you thinking?) that it makes me cringe. Even the extras cannot be bothered to die convincingly. As for Alan Ladd- what a block of wood! A truly,truly dreadful film.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] blakduke 17 years ago

Oh Well
Everyone to his/her own opinion. I watch it every now and then when it shows up. Granted if you are looking for academy awards performances forget it. for this type of film that is the last thing in the world you look for. As for being P.C. c'mon guys you should not expect that kind of thing from Hollywood or this type of film. I would kill to get the suit of armor Ladd had on, the costumes were not to outlandish, if nothing else there is quite a role played by Peter Cushing as an evil Saracen. It's not all that bad..

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 17 years ago

Its not at all bad just AWFUL! It really is a bad western transfered to the Age of Armour and left to rot. It was bilge like this that made Ladd want to kill himself. Aside from that it is just plain silly.

Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.

[–] liscarkat 17 years ago

Cardboard, cringe-worthy, awe-inspiring in its badness. My little brother and I had more dramatic knight battles in the back yard with garbage-can-lid shields and wooden swords. And that helmet with the life-size squawking goose on top! What deranged costume designer forgot to take his pills that day?! (or took too many).

[–] Russian_Sundays 17 years ago

But legendary all the same, dear fellows! It was awe inspiring when I was a kid.

[–] liscarkat 16 years ago

Yeah, I understand.

[–] MystMoonstruck 11 years ago

This is listed as UK, NOT the US/Hollywood! Check YOUR facts before you belay Hollywood for the whoopses. Shouldn't the British know better?! No! Maybe they, like Hollywood, wanted to make a low-budget historical film that wouldn't have people nitpicking it to death!

Alan Ladd's "woodenness" sort of went with him being of the lower class.

As for his armor: "See if you can fashion a lighter suit," he's advised, followed by scenes of him doing exactly that. So, that's what he did! Besides, his helmet has one of those flip-ups~just like many others, not the half-bared version others insist that he wears. BTW: Alan Ladd was much nearer the correct height of men back then. They weren't towering males.

Consider this: If the Italians could wreak havoc with mythology and their history in sword-and-sandal films, why can't the English? I doubt that there is a country that hasn't produced a few films that are a far cry from the history they were supposed to show.

What about "Moulin Rouge", "The Great Gatsby", "Marie Antoinette", and "A Knight's Tale" with all of their modern music and vastly anachronistic moments?! YEESH! Yet, people made them hits and declare them brilliant filmmaking!

Frankly, I can enjoy the bizarre mix of Camelot, Saracens, the Wicker Man, dancing maidens, a bewigged sacrifice, dour Druids and a complete Stonehenge, demolished long before Chevy Chase got to it=} Relax! Get over it! Have some FUN, for cryin' out loud=} "Woe is me! They got the hist'ry wrong! WAH!" Well, I'd say the BRITISH were having some fun with this! Sheesh!

NOTE: Their intent was to kill her specifically, wasn't it? So, if flaxen hair is demanded, why not a wig? I thought it was a funny bit. The gods demand a blonde... Oh well! To me, it was definitely a not-so-in-joke!

So, check the IMDb credits before you whine about Hollywood. You might just be blaming the wrong country.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the film though I wasn't sure what to expect, as I somehow missed this throughout the years. I didn't expect Alan Ladd to fit at all, but the darker, longer hair helps. I love seeing Patrick Troughton, whom I briefly met at Paradox, a "Doctor Who" convention. Sadly, the next month, while at another convention, he died. I'll always remember him and Nicholas Courtney, the Brigadier General, talking about the series and sharing inside stories with us. Then, the people running the con broke in to rush them off somewhere else! I wish the two of them had been given more time to reminisce. It was as if, for a while, they forgot we were there~just two men talking about their work and obviously enjoying themselves.

*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***

[–] Xcalat3 16 years ago

it is bad but kind of campy

i give it a 4

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

[–] 35541m 16 years ago

I saw it over the weekend - its appallingly bad even for a film of this type.

Most of the battle footage, and endless shots of knights riding across what looked like the Spanish countryside, looked to be stock footage from another film spliced into close shots of action. the castles looked distinctly non English. There were continuity errors galore and Ladd's stunt double's face was visible in numerous shots. And Ladd's acting was simply diabolical.

[–] kinchradio 15 years ago

watching it now- not a bad movie for a Sat. morning
Ladd is one of my favorite actors

[–] copeland_399 15 years ago

Hahaha! Making me laugh. Death to the Black Knight, hands on hips - haha! I keep expecting Sid James and Charles Hawtrey to pop up.

Alan Ladd is such a little guy yet one slap across the chops and the big guy is out for the count - hilarious.

Does take me back to Saturday Morning Picture Club when we'd pretend to "gallop" home brandishing twigs for swords. lol

Ahahaha - "Rise Sir John" ooops! He's already risen - lol lol lol.

Good for a laugh on a wet Saturday afternoon.

[–] Fitvideo 15 years ago

I found it an amazingly accurate rendition of British History according to Hollywood.
We have castles like those scattered outside every small town throughout England, especially just like the one surrounded by sandy desert. Deserts are quite common in Yorkshire. Camelot was invaded by the Saracens at least six times over a four hundred year period, however each time they were soundly beaten off. Sadly, later on it was forced to capitulate to the Irish.
Things went downhill from there on....
Druids walk the streets to this day...

Regards

Fitvideo

[–] Jason_Radley 11 years ago

Ladd is the main problem; he's woefully miscast and completely out of place in a British film. If the makers had cast someone like Richard Todd as the hero, and spent the money they wasted on Ladd on the production values, this wouldn't have been half as bad.

[–] GJValent 10 years ago

Around this time, wasn't Richard Todd making Robin Hood for Disney ? (As Disney had to use money in England, that was kept in England, after the war ?)

[–] pol-edra 13 years ago

I hadn't realized I had seen this movie once before, a very long time ago, when I started watching today. It came back to me little by little, and although I have no idea when exactly, I am now certain I saw this before, as a very young child. I vividly remembered the sacrifice of the blong maiden at Stonehenge, and thinking, even at a young age, that wig was horrible and hilarious (if the sun-god demands the victim be flaxen-haired, then why bother abducting a raven-haired girl? Did they suddenly run out of blondes in the south of England?)
But I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. There's something endearing and relaxing about those old 50s things, so bright and merry. They didn't give a damn about historicity and were in some measure at least truer to the literary aspects of the Arthurian legend than many more modern takes (the endless debates here on imdb about what's historically accurate and what is not, in fantasy fiction, are rather tiresome).
The acting is extremely outdated, but the sets and costumes are lavishly fun to watch; in fact they're probably some of my favorites for 50s medieval movies. These days, anything medieval need be drab and dull; it is supposed to be more "realistic", when it's just another cliché about the Middle Ages. Medieval men and women loved colour, and I am pretty sure they would have loved watching movies like The Black Knight.

"Sometimes I'm callous and strange."

[–] lotsofwordz 12 years ago

"Medieval men and women loved colour" - ordinary Medieval folks couldn't AFFORD colour. That's what you don't seem to understand: just as life in the 1930s and 1940s was not ACTUALLY in sepia, so life in the Middle Ages WAS drab, with a lot more dirt and mud than in modern towns. Even posh women didn't wear modern lip gloss. Knights didn't have Brilliantine in their hair. And so on.

[–] Squeeth2 11 years ago

Quite agree but I liked it anyway. I have a suspicion that some of the props ended up in Flash Gordon, some of the acting too. ;O)

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] mike-1730 11 years ago

I could not agree more.
I have never seen a worse pile of utter tosh.
Stilted dialogue, sloppy direction, and appalling performances from everybody except Cushing, who does his best.
Trash of the first rank.

[–] eek-a-mouse 11 years ago

I found it as bad as you all say but it was great fun. My brother and I watched this when we were kids and we laughed all through it. The Lady Linnet was especially ridiculous, calmly strolling into the room while her father's entire household is being massacred and their castle pillaged and set on fire and looking 'startled' when she sees him lying wounded on the ground. Alan Ladd was the worst and the funniest thing about this film.

[–] youngsteve 11 years ago

Yes, it is quite bad but enjoyable all the same. Ever seen The Black Shield of Falworth where Tony Curtis proclaims hilariously 'Yonder lies the castle of my fodder' in his thick Brooklyn accent. Priceless.

[–] a_heathen_conceivably 11 years ago

“Yonder lies the castle of my fodder.” (The famous movie quote Tony Curtis didn’t say.)
http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2012/08/yonder-lies-castle-of-my-fodder -famous.html

"Oh look - a lovely spider! And it's eating a butterfly!"
'' ,,

[–] qatmom 10 years ago

I was convinced it was made in Hollywood because so much of the terrain looked like dry southern California...but that must have been the footage shot in Spain.

It is all quite dreadful. Every castle seems to be about a mile away from every other castle. The costumes are just awful...I don't expect realism in a movie like this...but the horns on the "Viking" helmets...

Did anyone notice that the grey horse Alan Ladd begins using...becomes another horse with a black mane and tail? Horse people notice stuff like that. It's very distracting for us.

And no Guinevere!

[–] brianwhite5 9 years ago

It's obviously made for kids so grow up!
I agree with you about the block of wood that is Alan Ladd - how Shane is deemed a classic is beyond me but I suppose his bad acting is what makes it watchable since it turns into a comedy for the wrong reasons.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

If you watch it as a poor man's Mel Brooks spoof you'll see it in a different light.