PRINCE VALIANT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 19

PRINCE VALIANT

(20th Century-Fox) F you have read old Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, or Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, or even T. H. White’s Sword in the Stone, you are likely to find the incredible adventures of Prince Valiant a somewhat numbing experience. But they were not meant. for you, anyway. CinemaScope, which has been playing for the teen-age audience (and, as often as not, getting A certificates), ‘has this time lowered its sights far enough to produce a film which appeals directly to the Lower Classes. Prince Valiant is definitely for primary school extroverts. Small boys such as the two I took along (you’ve got to do something with them in the holidays) will enjoy themselves thoroughly. Their elders will either be sent ‘to sleep, or into paroxysms of helpless laughter. Prince Valiant, as 1 was forewarned by my juvenile entourage (they always seem to know more than their elders about the irrelevant facts of current life) is based on a comic strip, and if I hadn’t been armed with that vital information I’m sure I’d have plagued myself trying to recall where I had seen before so many characters looking like All-American halfbacks. Even the Knights of the Round Table appeared to be wearing shoulder-pads under their armour, and the dialogue had such a shattering simplicity ("Sit down; I want you to get acquainted with my knights"), that if it had issued in balloons from the lips of the dramatis personae I would scarcely have remarked the phenomenon. For those of you (stuffed shirts, no doubt) who have not kept up with your pulp-reading, the Story concerns a stripling prince, scion of a Scandinavian government-in-exile, who travels to Camelot to seek his fortune as a first step towards the liberation of his father’s realm. After sundry adventures with a black knight and a blonde damsel} he reaches Arthur’s court, where (with a self-confidence that, would make Private Schine blush) he requests immediate admission to the Round. Table. King, Arthur, however, who is not merely commander-in-chief and Secretary of the Army, but chairman of the Commit-

tee of Investigation as well, is not impressed. "Another time, Valiant," he says, regally laconic, and drafts him for basic training as squire to Sir G’wain. This section of the film is not at all bad-if you can shut your ears to the Basic English. It gives at least an approximate picture of the kind of military training young squires did getelementary swordsmanship and tilting at the quintain-and there is one slap-up tournament before the Court that is full of colour and pageantry, and has also the added advantage of a running commentary. Television could do no better. Here, too, Prince Val runs into another spot of bother. Trying to prevent the blonde aforementioned-who is first prize in Open class at the tournamentfalling into the hands of treacherous Sir Brac (James Mason, no less) he jousts with him in borrowed armour and is humiliatingly knocked for a row of ashcans by the villain. It takes reliable Sir G’wain (in his second-best suit) to save the day and the girl. Much more follows, but of it all I have only the haziest recollection. I dozed fitfully, awakened, from time to time by the bricks dropped by the script department. P.V. manages to recapture his Father’s kingdom (populated by hairy vikings in horned helmets), and returns to Camelot, where he has a fight to the death with the wicked Sir Brac and, emerging victor, of course, fills the consequential vacancy at the Round Tahle. He wins the girl, too. Fortunately, the scriptwriters stopped there-there was a winner-take-all jackpot air about the climax that might have led them into even wilder flights of anachronism if they had carried on. But they proved something. The wide screen is just the thing for "comic" strips; so far it’s just about as deep, too. ‘