In which we discuss "Camelot" and the miscasting of Vanessa Redgrave

But didn't Redgrave star with her real-life husband, Franco Nero? That gave the film something extra.

Confess it, how many of us could never sit through CAMELOT in its entirety?

I'll be thrashed....but.....I never really got Vanessa Redgrave.

I don't get it. If Julie Andrews had become such a film star, then why couldn't she do the film version of the musical she originally starred in on stage? If the film version of "My Fair Lady" had come after she became a movie star, would she have turned down the role?

I always heard the director or studio head or someone in power infamously turned Julie down saying she wasn't sexy enough.

Vanessa was beautifully ethereal in that movie.

R5 how do you feel about bisexuality?

ooo r7 aren't you tricky. You figured out trolldar!!

R4, Julie did the stage version of Camelot as payback for My Fair Lady. Nobody really likes Camelot but Lerner & Lowe were a brand by then so it sold.

I mean, Camelot. Ugh.

Julie wouldn't have fit in with the earthy, hippie, late 60s aesthetic I envisioned for the film.

I think Julie only wanted to do it with Burton who Warner didn't want so that was it.

AFTER they couldn't get her Josh Logan made his "can you imagine a war being fought over Julie Andrews?" statement. Prick.

The movie may suck, but Redgrave is the best thing in it.

[quote] The movie may suck, but Redgrave is the best thing in it.

And with a singing voice like Redgrave's, that's hardly a ringing endorsement. She was SO miscast.

MY FAIR LADY proved that you could have a hit musical where one of the leads couldn't really sing.

The film of CAMELOT tried unsuccessfully to prove that you can have a musical where none of the leads could sing.

Forget about her....let's discuss Franco Nero!

There is no point of discussing the casting of the film, because no actor who ever lived could have saved that mess from the direction.

Or the costume and set designers, yeesh!

Redgrave didn't have much of a voice, but her wispy singing did mesh well with Harris' crooning, for what little that's worth. Andrews would have blown Harris out of the water.

What Redgrave did have was a ethereal sensuality that suited the role of Guinivere beautifully. That's a quality that Andrews couldn't have managed no matter how hard she tried.

But R15 is correct - the film is smothered in overstuffed art direction and bad direction. And let's face it - after the awful film of SOUTH PACIFIC, why did anyone let Logan do another film musical?

One can complain that Redgrave's singing is not stellar, but it isn't bad, at all. One can complain that it would have been nice to have a Guinevere with an outstanding singing voice, one who was a true singer.

But at least - unlike Kerr, Hebpurn, and Wood - we don't have a lead who who was dubbed.

But miscast?

Not at all. There is nothing miscast about Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere. She looks gorgeous, regal, sexy, the perfect object of courtly love, and couldn't be righter for the role. And her acting, as always, is beyond reproach.

As for the movie not being great, I have news for you.

Camelot isn't all that great on stage either.

Julie Andrews may have had the better singing voice...

But it was VANESSA REDGRAVE who actually brought LUST to the month of May!

Vanessa Redgrave was actually quoted saying something like "If Julie Andrews wanted to be playing this role, she would be." I guess she wanted to avoid the type of backlash Audrey Hepburn got with MY FAIR LADY and make it clear that Julie had turned down the role this time rather than Vanessa "stealing" it from her.

And I'm sure the quote is true. Andrews was the #1 box office star at the time - no producer would have willingly passed up the chance to have the top box office earner do a role she had previously done on stage.

Loved it on stage. Movie was awful - especially Redgrave, Harris and the costumes.

"As for the movie not being great, I have news for you.

Camelot isn't all that great on stage either."

"The Sound of Music" is a big borefest on stage, but the movie is wonderful and engaging. Goes to show, you CAN turn a sow's ear into a silk purse if you've got the right talent on screen and behind the scenes.

EXUSE ME .....BUT WHAT IDIOT WOULD SAY CAMELOT WAS A BAD MOVIE? MUCH LESS THE ORIGINAL SOUTH PACIFIC? BOTH WON MANY AWARDS AND ARE CONSIDERED BY FILM HISTORIANS SOME OF THE BEST FILMS EVER MADE IN THE 20TH CENTURY!!

ALSO..THIS SHOWS THAT MOST OF YOU ARE USED TO MODERN BAD MOVIES THAT USE WAY TOO MUCH CGI AND HAVE NO TALENT ACTORS, SO YOU WOULD NOT HAVE THE EXPERTISE TO JUDGE PAST CLASSICS.

AS FAR AS WAS VANNESSA REDHRAVE BEST FOR THE PART? ABSOLUTELY! WHY? IN MY OPION SHE IS AN EXCELLENT ACTRESS AND HAD THE ETHERAL BEAUTY NEEDED TO MAKE A 1960'S VISION OF GUENRVEIRE AND CAMELOT A REALITY.

JULIE ANDREWS WOULD HAVE BEEN HORRIBLE IN THE PART.....SHE IS TOO WHOLESOME TO PLAY AN ADULTRESS. JULIE DEFINITELY COULD NOT PULL OFF A SEXY SEDUCTRESS PART NEEDED FOR THE FILM.

ALSO FOLKS, JULIE ANDREWS WAS UNDER CONTRACT WITH WALT DISNEY STUDIOS AT THE TIME CAMELOT WAS FILMED. SHE HAD JUST SIGNED TO DO MARY POPPINS AND EVENTUALLY MANY OTHER FILMS INCLUDING SOUND OF MUSIC.

WALT DISNEY WOULD HAVE REFUSED TO LOAN MISS ANDREWS OUT AND WOULD NOT ALLOW HIS STAR SUCH AN UNWHOLESOME ROLE WHICH WOULD REFECT BADLY ON DISNEY'S FAMILY VALUES FILM CREDO.

Redgrave had an affair and a child with Franco Nero, but didn't marry him until 2006.

Franco Nero made me realize I liked boys.

Camelot is awful. Joshua Logan was a very mediocre director. The makeup in the film is particularly horrible - the styles of the sixties bleed into everything. .

I don't think I've seen the movie but I do know it was one of the overlong, overstuffed musicals that the studios produced in the wake of the big three musical successes: My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music.

After those three became gigantic hits that played for years, the studios figured we wanted more of the same, and they gave us some of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history: Dr. Doolittle, Paint Your Wagon, Camelot, Song of Norway, The Happiest Millionaire, Star! and Hello, Dolly!, to name a few.

These were roadshow, hard-ticket attractions that didn't attract much business, since the viewing public had moved on and were now more interested in the newer, cutting-edge movies such as The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider and In the Heat of the Night.

But I don't understand why Camelot flopped. The score as I recall has many lovely, catchy numbers, and it should have been a bigger hit. But I say this without actually seeing the picture.

Even back then, I wanted Franco Nero in me, quite deeply.

I think the score to Camelot is superior to My Fair Lady actually. But the book, GOD the book. It will never work. Never. The whole show literally needs to be rewritten. But given the track record of rewritten Broadway books, that two would be a flop.

Did Vanessa ever play Blanche Dubois? She would have been perfect.

You were in Camelot Because you wanted to ham a lot!

I've never seen Camelot on stage, but I've loved the score ever since I was a kid. A shame the movie is so bad.

Josh Logan was pretty good with drama -- Picnic and Fanny both hold up extremely well -- but South Pacific and Camelot are pretty much unwatchable.

Back in the mid 70s the Met had a Hollywood costume exhibit and I saw the wedding dress from Camelot.

I remember it being gorgeous.

Covered with things like pumpkin seeds and natural things but all creams and ivory colors. it was really beautiful.

The only costumes that i still remember to this day are the ones from Gone With The Wind, Camelot and the Garbo costumes from Camille.

I can't imagine Julie Andrews in the movie version of Camelot, and I wonder if they seriously considered her for the role. The play was re-written for the screen; Guinevere went from a prim, virginal princess to an earthy, free-loving flower child. Also, Mordred went from a cute tight-wearing imp (Roddy McDowell) to a leather-jacketed punk (David Hemmings).

I've seen clips of Julie as Guinevere, and I find her extremely annoying and "precious".

[quote]WALT DISNEY WOULD HAVE REFUSED TO LOAN MISS ANDREWS OUT AND WOULD NOT ALLOW HIS STAR SUCH AN UNWHOLESOME ROLE WHICH WOULD REFECT BADLY ON DISNEY'S FAMILY VALUES FILM CREDO.

Well, he must've changed his mind when the producers of "Star!" came calling.

[quote]But didn't Redgrave star with her real-life husband, Franco Nero? That gave the film something extra.

There weren't married. They met on the film.

r35, Julie was never under contract to Disney (or any other studio) - I think "LORI SEARS" is confused.

Julie Andrews was not under contract to Disney. She made one movie for Disney, 'Mary Poppins' in 1964. She then made pictures for MGM ('The Americanization of Emily, 1965), 20th Century Fox ('The Sound of Music', 1965), Universal (Alfred Hitchcock's 'Torn Curtain' 1966), Mirisch ('Hawaii', 1966), another picture for Universal ('Thoroughly Modern Millie' 1967) before she made 'Star for 20th Century Fox in 1968.

Andrews contract for Fox was for 2 pictures. The first was 'The Sound of Music', the second was 'Star'.

Andrews did not made another picture for Disney until 2001's 'The Princess Diaries'

Did anyone like the Lincoln Center/PBS version with Nathan Gunn, Gabriel Byrne, Marin Mazzie and ... Fran Drescher?

who did Fran Drescher play?

R41 Morgan Le Fay

Also Marc Kudisch, Will Swenson, and Chris Sieber as the knights. (And DL fave Bobby Steggert as Mordred.)

IS THIS ON VIDEO OR ONLINE? I gotta see Fran!!

For a minute I got confused and thought Morgan Le Fay was the character who sings "Follow Me", and was suddenly hearing in my ears Fran Drescher singing that song... The horror! The horror!

That's what I thought r44....so who is Morgan Le Fey?

r26, r35: I know "Star" is just a bucket of chum,(I'll bet Andrews knew it too) but I like the film, in the guilty pleasure category. "Once I had such a shattering physician....."

Morgan Le Fay's character wasn't in the movie, but is in the Broadway version. She's Mordred's aunt. Per Wikipedia:

[quote]In subsequent productions Alan Jay Lerner removed the "Morgan Le Fay" role to make the second act less comical, replacing the scene between her and Mordred with a Mordred/Arthur scene.

I'm just starting to watch it on YouTube.

20 minutes in, and so far, so good.

"Morgan Le Fay's character wasn't in the movie, but is in the Broadway version. She's Mordred's aunt. "

In the book, Morguase was Mordred's mother. She was Arthur's half-sister but seduced him anyway, and they had a child by incest.

The book is enchanting, BTW, I recommend "The Once and Future King" to anyone. And I hope that someday there will be a decent film adaption of it, but both "Camelot" and Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" are weak.

Nimue sings "Follow Me" to give Arthur and Guenevere time to changes clothes in the stage version.

There was a non-musical "Camelot" mini-series in 2011, but I don't know much about it.

R49 - The original T.H. White book was not better.

To do Camelot properly a writer would have to go back to Thomas Malory and distill a stageable story from it.

you people are crazy. i loved, loved loved Camelot. None of the leads could sing very well, but I liked it anyway. Franco Nero was so hot that I couldn't picture Robert Goulet as Lancelot. I bet he sang the hell out of his songs but Franco will always be my Lancelot, Vanessa my Guinevere and Richard my Arthur. One of my most favorite movies. I cry every time I watch it.

[quote]Back in the mid 70s the Met had a Hollywood costume exhibit and I saw the wedding dress from Camelot.

I remember it being gorgeous.

Covered with things like pumpkin seeds and natural things but all creams and ivory colors. it was really beautiful

Saw that exhibit. The gown was beautiful. Put me in the majority camp but I liked the movie. I loved Redgrave's performance. I have always preferred the movie to the stage show.

R40. No, I didn't care for it. Paper Mill did a production with Brett Barrett and Glory Crampton that was quite good. And the Morgan leFey character was used in this production.

Julie was perfect onstage. As someone said, the evening played like a Noel Coward comedy, all lightness and brittleness (there's a sound recording of the complete show that verifies this). The movie went all dreamy and hippy, but when Redgrave talks/sings "my love!" in "I Loved You Once in Silence" I get all tingly no matter how many times I've heard it.

And the wedding scene is gorgeous.

Umm... I meant put me in the minority camp sorry!

Happy Birthday, kcguy!

Just got up to the intermission. Arthur discovers that Jenny and Lance love each other, if only so far in their hearts, and is wounded by the betrayal (I love them both and this is how they treat me!) Lance has been knighted, and the knights have been seated at the round table.

Pretty good, if only it ended here. But I think there's another 90 minutes to go.

r63, are you watching the movie or the PBS stage production? If the latter, can you provide a link?

"Despite the music, the movie was a failure because it was an expensive, poorly plotted mess based on a play that was a poorly plotted mess and nearly killed its creator. It only hung on because of "The Ed Sullivan Show" and JFK's death."

I just wanted to say that the show played its entire 873-performance run prior to JFK's death, and therefore prior to any association with JFK in the public's mind. (I think there was still a tour out at the time he died.) Everything else you say about it is true.

At the time, Camelot was never associated with JFK's death. It was about his reign....I mean, his presidency.

Yes, r67, there would still have been a movie. Remember that they even made a movie of PAINT YOUR WAGON, which had a far shorter run and far fewer album sales; Hollywood wouldn't have passed up a Lerner and Loewe show that had had the success CAMELOT had.

But yes, I imagine the show would be only marginally remembered by the public today if it weren't for the JFK association.

I think his death was always tied into the association, r68 - Jackie specifically quoted the "for one brief shining moment" line. The brevity was part of the whole thing.

Has the show ever had a major production with 3 leads who were actually the right ages for the characters they play? Shouldn't they realistically be in their early 20s?

I never miss a Lee Marvin musical.

The question is has a flop ever been made into a movie? I guess On a Clear Day wasn't a big hit.

r63 here. Just finished the Josh Logan version of the movie and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. It didn't capture my imagination but the songs are tuneful and mostly well-sung, and it was hard not to be moved by the sadness of all three parties by the difficult situation they were in.

The movie is not one for the ages, but the songs may live on until properly mounted either on stage or on screen.

"Has the show ever had a major production with 3 leads who were actually the right ages for the characters they play?"

What age would that be? In the real dark ages, girls married in their early teens and boys became knights in their late teens, and boys became king whenever their fathers died.

And the characters age somewhat as the story progresses. In the book, the love triangle lasted for a decades, before it blew Camelot apart.

I thought Julie Andrews turned down the film simply because she didn't like the show that much.

It's discussed in Julie Madly Deeply, soon to be seen in London's glittering West End after a very successful run in Edinburgh.

I would think that the appropriate ages for the 3 leads would be in their late 20s...actors who might be believable through the decade of the story.

Isn't Arthur supposed to be perceived as a callow boy in the opening? And the show is all about youthful impetuous passion.

The parts are usually cast with actors in their mid-30s to late 40s. Why, I don't know.

There's an audio of the original cast of CAMELOT ("Take Me to the Fair" was cut and sorely missed). Not heard it in a while but what surprised me was how effective Andrews actually was (and how wonderful she sounds live) however her approach is very light and comic, Burton adds the gravitas to the show. I think Andrews already sounds a little too mannered on the cast recording. Overall the whole tone is very different from the film almost drawing room comedy and Andrews gets laughs but her line readings are very witty repartee. Lancelot's and Guenevere's affair isn't consummated which in the film certainly isn't the case.

Count me in as one who finds the film a guilty pleasure. Harris approaches drag queen with his eye makeup and histrionics and Logan's direction is terrible but I don't think Redgrave ever looked more beautiful on film (I find her quite haunting-especially at the end of the cheesy "If Ever I Would Leave You" montage and in her scene with Arthur at the end of the film kills me every time ).I also think the real life affair of Nero and Redgrave across on screen. It's unfortunate Logan 's direction is obvious and plodding but I think the film still manages to present the triangle as the cause for the fall of an empire and if the story hadn't been told as a flashback the story arch would have felt more like a real tragedy. I also wonder if another director and if Burton had been in the film if it would have been elevated into a classic.

I think Vanessa's vocals are kind of lovely and effective.

Andrews, though I love her, I actually find to be a limited actress and only in SoM and HAWAII does she seem to display any real range, otherwise I generally think of her acting as more reaction shots and lots of prim and proper mugging at her situation than any real emotional involvement (look at POPPINS ,MILLIE, and V/V-she's sort of the..ummm..straight man to all the crazies around her).Remember apparently Moss Hart literally had to lock her in a hotel room and drill Eliza Doolittle out of her. Supposedly her performance in MFL was recorded in for her understudy Lola Fisher in order for her pick up the cockney accent but that recording has never turned up. THAT is one I would love to hear but again by the time the time she recorded the London cast album her performance seems much more mannered.

Thanks for that analysis, r80, I appreciate it especially having just seen the movie.

Also, all that wind blowing Vanessa's hair and nightgown (in interior scenes!) was a bit over the top, and had to be considered a cliche even in 1967. How could they film that with a straight face?

[quote]The original T.H. White book was not better

I respectfully disagree. It's one of the great books of the last 100 years.

The thing that's missing from ALL stage and screen versions is the sly, and often witty, social commentary.

Camelot was the lunatic fringe of prissy. If you don't believe me, just ask Noel Coward.

Fortunately all those prissy songs like the abominable "What do simple folk do?" and "You may guide me to the fair" were cut from the movie. "Fie on goodness" wasn't even a song.

R84 I agree 100%. " Once and Future King" is an excellent book. I always use that quote " a true friend will tell you the unkindest truth".

I found THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING unbelievably boring.

I think it's Julie Andrews's favorite book, though.

Thanks r82 - I love the book also. The fatal flaw, the sense of sadness and doom...

The years 1966-1968 saw incredible changes in culture and the arts and the film of Camelot suffered because of it.

What do the Simple Folk Do? was certainly in the movie, r84.

Tell me about it, r88!

Shall we compare and contrast with the movie of "Finian's Rainbow," which came a few years later (and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola)?

[quote]The years 1966-1968 saw incredible changes in culture and the arts and the film of Camelot suffered because of it

I know what you're saying and it's true. But many of the musicals that came out in that period and following just really sucked. Paint Your Wagon, Camelot, Star!, Hello Dolly, etc. Each had some good moments but were for the most part, overblown, gargantuan, lumbering messes.

The exception is "Oliver" which I think still holds up extremely well.

1964-1965 saw three big musical successes: My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music.

After those three became gigantic hits that played for years, the studios figured we wanted more of the same, and they gave us some of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history: Dr. Dolittle, Paint Your Wagon, Camelot, Song of Norway, The Happiest Millionaire, Star! and Hello, Dolly!, to name a few.

These were roadshow, hard-ticket attractions that didn't attract much business, since the viewing public had moved on and were now more interested in the newer, cutting-edge movies such as The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider and In the Heat of the Night.

Loved Finian's. Camelot can't compare with the great Harburg score. Certainly Harburg was the most left wing of the musical composers - Loesser the most to the right.

"These were roadshow, hard-ticket attractions that didn't attract much business, since the viewing public had moved on and were now more interested in the newer, cutting-edge movies such as The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider and In the Heat of the Night."

This is not entirely true - the viewing public flocked to FUNNY GIRL and OLIVER!, which were both among the Top 10 highest-grossing movies of 1968.

They just weren't interested in seeing badly done musicals, which most of the ones Hollywood was turning out were.

There are certain guilty pleasures that I have and "Camelot" is one of them. I first saw it when I was 13 and sweated Franco Nero. I knew my religion when those blue, blue eyes stared back at me. Over the top, long, and hippie/dippie.

So what?

I loved "The Once and Future King," but I also loved "Mistress Masham's Repose," and I was also a baby Anglophile which helped a lot. Homosexualist T.H. White was a hardcore British historian and wasn't afraid to let his scholarly flag fly in his fiction.

Here's a photo of Redgrave and hottie Franco's son..

How did this happen?

Which "Camelot" did you watch, r84? "You May Take Me To The Fair" and "What Do The Simple Folk Do?" were both in the movie, though "WDTSFD?" maybe *should* have been cut. That's supposed to be an upbeat, "musical comedy" song; in the film, it starts out dreary and dissolves into a heap of MARY!-ness:

The film of West Side Story was still running in NYC in 1965. I was in junior high then and I came into the city from suburban NJ with my friends for a day trip for the first time.

Fie on you, r84! "Fie on Goodness" was (and still is) my favorite song from the OCR; I was devastated when I saw the film and it wasn't there. It was cut from the show after the OCR was recorded and is now (along with "Then You May Take Me To The Fair," another fun song) listed as an "optional" number when producing the stage production.

Personally, if they had to cut 2 songs, I would've gotten rid of the boring-ass "What Do The Simple Folk Do?" and "Before I Gaze At You Again."

JFK 's association with Camelot:

Even dear Julie Andrews, who's very circumspect in her memoir, recalls "Camelot" as a shattering experience. Moss Hart died during the run (and had a major heart attack during the out of town tryouts). Lerner had to be hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer...Goulet was still fairly new to the stage, Burton was burnishing his legend as the Great Actor & Drunk...

I was fascinated to find out that the show went back into rehearsal and there were rewrites & cuts after it opened...and if Hart hadn't died, presumably they would have kept working on it.

Sounds like it was both a labor of love & a heartbreak for a lot of the people involved.

I bet it would make a great pared-down concert version, like Chicago.

[quote]Count me in as one who finds the film a guilty pleasure. Harris approaches drag queen with his eye makeup and histrionics and Logan's direction is terrible but I don't think Redgrave ever looked more beautiful on film (I find her quite haunting-especially at the end of the cheesy "If Ever I Would Leave You" montage and in her scene with Arthur at the end of the film kills me every time ).I also think the real life affair of Nero and Redgrave across on screen. It's unfortunate Logan 's direction is obvious and plodding but I think the film still manages to present the triangle as the cause for the fall of an empire and if the story hadn't been told as a flashback the story arch would have felt more like a real tragedy. I also wonder if another director and if Burton had been in the film if it would have been elevated into a classic.

I think Vanessa's vocals are kind of lovely and effective.

Thank you and I agree. Adored Redgrave in this. I have that CAMELOT audio too and yes, very humorous in spots.

R89- I believe what R84 was referring to is h after the roadshow run, CAMELOT's general release prints were cut. About 30 minutes total was gone. Gone were whole verses of "What Do The Simple Folk Do?," "C'st Moi," "Simple Joys of Maidenhood," "Take Me to the Fair." Even "Camelot" lost the last verse. Only "If Ever I Would Leave You" was left intact. The cut footage was restored for the video releases.

Loved If only I would leave you, Before I gaze at you again, and Simple joys of maidenhood.

Hated Fie on Goodness. I always skip that one on the Broadway album. R101- we have different tastes I guess.

I agree about Harris and the eye makeup- ridiculous- and would have preferred Burton in the movie.

Although Redgrave was lovely, her vocals are just not on par w/Julie A's- so when listening to the soundtrack- I always go for the broadway version..

I like the Laurence Harvey London cast album too. That is available on CD thru Bruce Kimmel's site, kritzerland.com

Few vocals ARE on a par with Julie Andrews, as we came to learn.

Vannesa was beautiful in this film.

So was Vanessa.

The wonderful 'If Ever I Would Leave You'

Franco Nero has nice long fingers in that clip. But then so does Vanessa Redgrave!

Julie's stardom conflicting with her as Guinevere in the movie relates to Julie's squeaky clean image as Mary and Maria. Not to her being too big a star to play Guinevere which is, of course, a major role in a musical. I'm sure that Julie, her people, and the creative team of the movie found had serious reservations about Julie playing a queen who betrays her king and husband and is sentenced to death for it.

Decades later Julie and Blake Edwards would lampoon the conflict between movie star Goody Girl image and racy role in S.O.B..

"Julie's stardom conflicting with her as Guinevere in the movie relates to Julie's squeaky clean image as Mary and Maria. Not to her being too big a star to play Guinevere which is, of course, a major role in a musical. I'm sure that Julie, her people, and the creative team of the movie found had serious reservations about Julie playing a queen who betrays her king and husband and is sentenced to death for it."

I'm pretty sure this was not at all true for Julie and her people; I think they were interested in changing her image almost immediately after THE SOUND OF MUSIC. There was sort of an implied-sex scene in TORN CURTAIN that, although tame by today's standards, I think was considered hot and heavy at the time, and was condemned by the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency for its clear implication of pre-marital sex between Andrews and Paul Newman's characters. And her character in HAWAII, if I'm remembering that boring plot right, has an extramarital affair (with CAMELOT's Richard Harris), doesn't she? She even turned down Maggie Smith's Oscar-winning role in THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE because she didn't want to play another children's-caretaker character and reinforce that image. Then there was the alcoholic bitch she played in STAR!, the slutty stripteasing spy she played in DARLING LILI, etc.

I think Andrews actually spent most of her career after MARY POPPINS and THE SOUND OF MUSIC fighting against the image they created for her. Obviously it was a losing battle, both because those movies were so much more popular and more resonant than anything she ever did again, and because the roles were clearly such a perfect fit for her in a way that the "naughty", etc. roles she tried later never were. But I really doubt that concerns about CAMELOT ruining her squeaky-clean image played any factor at all in her turning down the movie.

Julie Andrews as Jean Brodie? It boggles the mind.

[quote]To do Camelot properly a writer would have to go back to Thomas Malory and distill a stageable story from it.

Mary!

People have been retelling the Camelot legend for years, from Tennyson to T. H. White to Walt Disney.

[quote]And her character in HAWAII, if I'm remembering that boring plot right, has an extramarital affair (with CAMELOT's Richard Harris), doesn't she?

Actually, I believe Harris was her suitor prior to her marriage to Max Von Sydow. He comes back into the picture and causes some friction, but her character never goes there with him.

Okay, I ordered "Camelot" from Netflix because of this thread, and dayamn! What a mess it is.

It's only half over, but that's enough to convince me that it has the ugliest production design in the history of film! All that green and brown, the horrible twee fake snow in the opening, the dreadful sixties clunky designs, the ridiculous impracticality of paper-mache armor... when we get a glimpse of the real world in the few outdoor shots, it's a shock.

Franco Nero's skin-tight pants aren't enough to redeem this mess, even if they are worth watching.

LOVE the movie Camelot. Everyone should quit trying to make it something it isn't. It was a 60s production, big and elaborate. Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero were perfect for the roles. The music was wonderful. It was a legend, a story. I saw it right after it came out and I still love it as much to this day.

[quote]r33 The play was re-written for the screen; Guinevere went from a prim, virginal princess to an earthy, free-loving flower child.

Redgrave is great in the part because she seems sincerely in love with her husband, yet also sensual enough to have her eye wander to Launcelot and have an affair.

The idea of Julie Andrews having an affair is kind of ridiculous. I mean, why would she? She's frigid.

R113 That wonderful doco tells how this story had problems right from the start. How do you make a musical about adultery? I can’t think of one.

Richard Burton may have been painfully bombastic on stage but he would have been preferable to hippie/dippie Richard Harris in the film (R87). The regal Vanessa would have made a better King Arthur than him.

And I also blame Josh (“please remove your shirt”) Logan (R10) for some of this film’s problems, the casting of ugly David Hemmings and also Warner Bros who were so keen to have a young hip version after all the criticism of their ‘enbalmed’ version of the geriatric 'My Fair Lady’.

Add me to the minority, too. I saw Camelot as a roadshow in the fall of 1967, and loved enough of it to enjoy it today. Harris still seems to be emoting to himself, but Redgrave is incandescent, and Nero reeks of testosterone. I liked the sets and costumes, which are sheer, enjoyable fantasy.

Logan’s heavy-handed direction succeeds in only one sequence, the If Ever I Would Leave You montage, which is so beautifully edited that we are given an ongoing image of their relationship over time, ending as the camera pulls back to show them clinging to each other in a giant, dilapidated cage in an abandoned aviary. Telling image.

Another reason this sequence is so moving is the beautiful underscoring by master film composer Alfred Newman, whose Oscar-winning musical direction won him his 9th Oscar. (He received an overall 45 nominations!) Newman not only used themes from the songs in his score, he also adds themes of his own, so that his underscore becomes almost an additional character. It’s a shame the complete music tracks have never been released.

(Note also his ethereal handling of the moment when Lancelot and Guinevere realize their love, gazing at each other over the knight Lancelot has just healed. There is no sound at all, dead quiet, then an extended soft chord begins the first few notes of If Ever I Would Leave You, as Lance stands, and walks past the assembled crowd, who bow to him in silent veneration. Masterful handling of the music by Newman. Nothing like that in the show.)

Additionally, I originally saw the Camelot touring company in November of 1963, in Pittsburgh, the week after JFK’s assassination. It starred a bulky Kathryn Grayson, but it had the original staging, including the Morgan Lefay sequence in Act II, wherein Mordred convinces her to detain Arthur, so that he can catch Guinevere with Lancelot. (In early 1968, after the movie had come out, I saw a stage production of the show at, of all places, Phillips Andover, which also included this scene.)

Lerner was always tinkering with the book. For the movie, he nixed Morgan Lefay, and added a bit from Arthur’s childhood from The Sword in the Stone, exploring Arthur’s inner child. This also ended up in the New York revival I saw years later, starring a frail Burton, who was nevertheless mesmerizing in his Act I final monologue.

I enjoyed this little mini-documentary. It had some great insights, not only the adultery angle, but also that marvelous intensity Burton had back then, as the words flew out of him. We forget what a firebrand he could be. The audio recording has the sound, but seeing him is so much more vital.

Camelot will always be a problematic show, but I have always loved the score, though you need a good director to manage the book. The movie has many virtues, visual and emotional, enough to keep me seeing it again after so many years.