The Sword in the Stone / The Sword and the Rose / The Moon-Spinners / The Reluctant Dragon


Reviews #43-46: The Sword in the Stone / The Sword and the Rose / The Moon-Spinners / The Reluctant Dragon

43: The Sword in the Stone (1963)

The next stop on my Disney deep dive was going to be a disappointment. It was as I remembered it. The Sword in the Stone premeired in 1963, before I was born, and returned to theaters a couple of times. I never saw it in one. And as luck would have it, it didn't surface on video when my niece or nephews were little. I was interested because it was King Arthur. And for decades, I've had an unread copy of The Once and Future King, of which, The Sword in the Stone is the first chapter. I was really looking forward to this movie the first time we rented it.

And it was just boring. Arthur's lessons are dragged out but not very entertaining. There isn't a song worth singing, and most of the songs are just nonsense words, which I guess work for magic, but not from repeatability. You won't hear any of these songs in any Disney parade. (Nor did I ever hear them on Radio Disney back when that was a thing.)

The rewatch was as I remembered it. On the other hand, if they decided to make a live-action remake of this movie, and update it so that it wouldn't bore 21st century children, I might actually look forward to that. The problem is that any studio that wanted to could do it. Disney wouldn't have an exclusive on the story, but only on their version of it.



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44: The Sword and the Rose (1953)

There is another person on reddit who is also going through Disney's old movies. He started much later than I did, but he also doesn't have a problem with paying for the movies he wants to watch. However, in this case, it turned out that the entire movie had been posted on YouTube. It's subject to removal for copyright violations, I'm sure.

In any case, I got to watch it.

While I didn't recognize any names in the credits or faces in the cast, the movie was enjoyable. It's the story of Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, who is married to Catherine of Aragon at the time.

Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles Brandon. Brandon becomes Captain of the Guard at Mary's request. Mary also has a longtime suitor, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. However, Henry wants to marry Mary to the aging King Louis XII of France to ecure peace. Brandon resigns to sail to the New World. Mary dresses like a boy to follow him. Being discovered, the two are put off the ship. (Mary is bad luck.) Henry's men arrest Brandon and lock him in the Tower of London. Brandon's life will be spared if Mary marries King Louis and agrees she could choose her second husband should she become a widow. Mary marrie Louis and basically kills him with wine and activity until his heart gives out. But Louis's brother intends to keep her for himself. Sword fights ensues. Along with double-crosses and treachery.

It was an enjoyable film, about what you might expect from 1950s cinema. I'm gkad it was available. This was made in England after Treasure Island and The Story of Robin Hood. This version of Robin Hood isn't widely known either. (People think of the cartoon instead.)



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45: The Moon-Spinners (1964)

This was an odd little film set in Greece with Eli Wallach as the villain of the piece. It also starred Hayley Mills in her fifth Disney film -- unfortunately, her third and fourth movies aren't available. (This film also features her first on-screen kiss.)

A young girl and her aunt are on vacation in Crete when they come to a hotel, The Moon Spinners. Initially, they're told there is no room, but the get a room for the night. The owner's brother (Eli Wallach) is suspicious of the newcomers. This is because he's a jewel thief.

There's a bit of shooting and violence in this one, and the film was retroactively rated PG.

The one person who really stands out in this was Pola Negri as Madame Habib. I looked her up online when I finished the movie. Negri had a long stage and film career -- though nothing that I've actually seen. She was considered for the role of Norma Desmond, but like several others, she turned it down because she didn't wish to portray a "has been". Watching her, she reminded me of Shohreh Aghdashloo, or to put it another way, if they ever remade this, I could imagine Aghdashloo in this role.

I'm glad I watched this if only for the "completeness" of my deep dive, but it's not something that I'll likely watch again. If this had been on TV when I was a kid, I don't know that I would've sat through the entire thing.



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46: The Reluctant Dragon (1941)

I think I watched this one before. I must've. However, when I recently looked at the D23 list of Disney films, theis was sitting there at #4 along with an image of a dragon, and I couldn't remember it for anything. So I watched it again

Robert Benchley stars in this and his name is much bigger than anyone else's in the credits. He appears to be playing a fictionalized version of himself, who seems to be a bit childish and hen-pecked. The film combines live action and animation by bringing Benchley on a tour of Disney's Studios. He's there for a meeting with Walt, which he's apparently trying to avoid. He's also trying to avoid the young page who was sent to escort him to Walt's office. In the meantime, Benchley walks into many departments to see how special cameras and microphones work as story as having a story told to him in storyboards.

He finally meets Walt Disney to pitch the idea of a making a movie out of a book he brought along. Spoiler: that book is the subject of a short that Walt is previewing: The Reluctant Dragon.

This is another one that drags on in spots as Benchley keeps avoiding a meeting. Everyone knows who he is, so I guess his fame preceeded him back then (which makes the opening scene in the swimming pool where his wife is reading him a story even stranger). Benchley passed away four years after the release of this film.



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If Heroes who don't die live long enough to become the villain, what happens to Villains who live long enough? When do schemes of global conquest become dreams of a quiet place away from all those annoying people you once wanted to subjugate? And does anyone really want to rule over the world's ashes if it means we can't have nice things?

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