16. The Sword in the Stone

DIRECTED BY WOLFGANG REITHERMAN

WRITTEN BY BILL PEET

STARING: RICKIE SORENSEN, KARL SWENSON, JUNUIS MATHEWS, SEBASTIAN CABOT, NORMAN ALDEN  & MARTHA WENWORTH.

RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 25, 1963

AGE RECOMMENDED: ALL

This is funny, I was watching this movie a couple of days ago and it is a great movie. Movie may be kind of helpful now a days Wart is bully but still he manages to became King Arthur. This one of the classic Disney movies,  and belongs to Disney’s British period (like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and 101 Dalmatians). The movie is based in the 1938 book, The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White, later renamed The Once and Future King . The movie had one of the most memorable and funnier villains in films, Madame Minn. The movie is great and funny but it has some flaws like some weak secondary characters.

PLOT

After the King of England, Uther Pendragon, dies, the titular “Sword in the Stone” appears in London with an inscription proclaiming that “Who so Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of England”. Nobody can remove the sword, which is soon forgotten, leaving England in a Dark Age.

Years later the protagonist Arthur (a.k.a. Wart), a 12-year-old orphan training to be a squire, while accompanying his older foster brotherKay on a hunting trip accidentally prevents Kay from shooting a deer. Wart goes to retrieve the arrow and falls into Merlin’s cottage. Merlin declares himself Wart’s tutor and the two return to Wart’s home, a castle run by Sir Ector, Arthur’s foster father. When Ector will not allow Merlin to tutor Wart, Merlin magically disappears, which persuades Ector to let Merlin stay. Ector’s friend, Sir Pellinore, arrives with news about the annual jousting tournament to be held on New Year’s Day in London, with the new development that the winner will become king. Ector decides to put Kay through serious training for the tournament and makes Wart his squire.

Merlin transforms Wart and himself into fish and they swim in the castle moat. Wart is attacked by a pike and saved by Archimedes, Merlin’s owl. Wart is sent to the kitchen as punishment after he tries relating his lesson to a disbelieving Ector. Merlin enchants the dishes to wash themselves, then takes Wart for another lesson and turns them into squirrels. Wart almost gets eaten by a wolf, and is saved by a female squirrel who falls in love with him. After they have returned to human form, Ector accuses Merlin of using black magic on the dishes. Wart defends Merlin but Ector will not listen, punishing Wart by giving Kay a different squire, Hobbs.

For his third lesson, Merlin transforms Wart into a sparrow and Archimedes teaches Wart how to fly. Wart is attacked by a hawk and flies down the witch Madam Mim’s chimney. Mim’s magic uses trickery, as opposed to Merlin’s scientific skill. Merlin arrives after she nearly kills Arthur and challenges Mim to a Wizards’ Duel, in which the combatants change themselves into various non-imaginary animals to destroy one another. Mim breaks the rules by eventually transforming into a dragon. Merlin transforms himself into a germ called “Malignalitaloptereosis” and infects Mim, effectively defeating her.

At Christmas, Kay is knighted but Hobbs comes down with the mumps; Ector reinstates Wart as Kay’s squire. Merlin is disappointed that Wart still prefers war games to academics. Wart tries to explain that, as an orphan, nobility is forbidden and a squire is the best position he can attain. This aggravates Merlin, who transports himself to 20th-century Bermuda.

Ector, Kay, Pellinore, Wart and Archimedes travel to London for the tournament. Wart realises he has left Kay’s sword at a nearby inn, which is closed because of the tournament. Archimedes notices a sword in a stone in a nearby churchyard. Wart pulls the sword from the stone, unwittingly fulfilling the prophecy. When Arthur returns with the sword, Ector and Sir Bart recognize it as the Sword in the Stone and the tournament is stopped. Demanding that Arthur prove he pulled it, Ector replaces the sword in its anvil. None of the other men can remove it, but Wart pulls it out again. The knights all proclaim, “Hail, King Arthur!” as the crowd kneels, the first being Ector, who apologises to Wart for all his previous harsh treatment of him.

Arthur, crowned king, sits in the throne room with Archimedes, yet feels unprepared to take the responsibility of royalty. Overwhelmed by the cheering crowd outside, Arthur calls out to Merlin for help, who arrives from Bermuda and is elated to find that Arthur is the King that he saw in the future. Merlin tells the boy that he will lead the Knights of the Round Table, becoming one of the most famous figures in literature and even in motion pictures.