1953 film by Richard Thorpe
Knights of the Round Table is a 1953 British adventure historical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in England and Ireland. Directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Pandro S. Berman, it was the first film in CinemaScope made by the studio. The screenplay was by Talbot Jennings, Jan Lustig and Noel Langley from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, first published in 1485 by William Caxton.
The film was the second in an unofficial trilogy made by the same director and producer and starring Robert Taylor, coming between Ivanhoe (1952) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955). All three were made at MGM's British studios at Borehamwood, near London and partly filmed on location. The cast included Robert Taylor as Sir Lancelot, Ava Gardner as Queen Guinevere, Mel Ferrer as King Arthur, Anne Crawford as Morgan le Fay, Stanley Baker as Modred and Felix Aylmer as Merlin. The film uses the Welsh spelling for Arthur's nemesis, Modred, rather than the more common Mordred.
In addition to the same producer, director and star, the first two films in the trilogy had the same cinematographer (F. A. "Freddie" Young), composer (Miklós Rózsa), art director (Alfred Junge) and costume designer (Roger Furse). The costumes for this film were executed by Elizabeth Haffenden. In 1955, she would take over from Furse as costume designer for the final film in the trilogy, Quentin Durward. Alfred Junge remained as art director.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.