I haven't seen this movie in, oh, say, 7 years (and I was fairly young then, so I don't remember almost anything from the movie), but lately I've wanted to see it again. I've heard a couple songs from the broadway version with Richard Butron (I LOVE Richard Burton's voice!!) and I want to know, was Richard Harris any good? Which Arthur do you like better?
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Richard Harris made a wonderful King Arthur in this film.He comes across as very human and caught up in something far beyond himself.Richard Burton may have been fine on stage but on screen always gave stiff,wooden performances with the notable exception of Night of the Iguana.His reputation as a Great Actor was derived from his performances of Shakespeare on the English stage,not his films.
In addition,Harris had a much better talk-sing style than Burton.Burton seems to bark all his lines which works in some cases but not others.Harris' mellow.mefluous talk-singing carried a tremendous range of feeling and nuance that was quite unique.He formed a wonderful partnership with Jimmy Webb and put out two record albums in 1968 (See board on MacArthur Park).
I always found that Burton seemed to play the part too seriously and in some ways too 'adult', where Harris had the childlike quality I that I personally think the part needs.
shareHarris was the better actor as King Arthur.
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I saw Harris in a broadway revival in the early '80s.
I would have taken off all my clothes and jumped onto the stage for him. Harris was so much more charismatic.
I have just listened to an audio recording of Burton's last performance in the original run in 1961 and I have also watched a bootleg video of him at the beginning of the 1980 revival (when its clear he was enjoying the role again and had not yet fallen victim to the issues that would force him out of the tour). Both times he literally holds forth as the spellbinding anchor of the whole piece. No one else and certainly not Richard Harris, can communicate the idealism and tragedy of Arthur better than Burton did.
The sad thing is that you really have to experience Burton in toto to understand why his not doing the film was one of the greatest travesties of how Hollywood wrecked so many Broadway classics. That's not an option available to most people unless they find the ones who have been lucky enough to get hold of the surreptitious recordings that weren't supposed to be made in the first place.
you're right. I cannot argue against what you're saying about Burton. And I have no idea (does anyone? do you have insight?) as to why Harris was chosen over Burton for the role in the film? They were only five years apart, so age should have been (and would have been) seamless in the film.
By the same token, what made the producers choose Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews for My Fair Lady when Julie had originated it on Broadway?
Burton was brilliant. No question. In 1967 Burton was married to Taylor, and had just come off Taming of the Shrew (oy. life repeating itself?)
So who knows.
I AGREE that Burton was the better actor. BUT Harris was... heat. Maybe that's what they were looking for.
this edit corrects a spelling error
Apparently, Jack Warner, remembering the backlash over not having Julie Andrews in "My Fair Lady" *did* try to get Burton and Andrews for "Camelot". But Burton turned the project down, because at that point in time he was too besotted with La Liz and interested only in doing movies with her. That had a ripple effect because once Burton was out, Andrews wasn't interested since she disliked Richard Harris from their "Hawaii" experience.
shareThat makes sense. Ok. and then everyone was happy when Julie (b.1935) got The Sound of Music, since by then Mary Martin (1913) was too old to pull it off for the silver screen. I'd seen her in the original broadway (1959) with Theodore Bikel, and of course the cast was brilliant -- but what you see from a distance in the theater is very different from what you see up close on film
And I really hated Vanessa in the role or Guenevere. She's certainly a great actress, but I found her to be wildly miscast in this.