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Knights Of The Round Table (film)
''Knights of the Round Table'' is a 1953 British adventure historical film made by MGM 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, 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 addit ...
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Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe (born Rollo Smolt Thorpe; February 24, 1896 – May 1, 1991) was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Biography Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, Richard Thorpe began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred and eighty films. He worked frequently at the Poverty Row studio Chesterfield Pictures during the 1930s. The first full-length motion picture he directed for MGM was ''Last of the Pagans'' (1935) starring Ray Mala. At MGM, he teamed up with producer Pandro S. Berman in the 1950s, with whom he made several films, including '' Ivanhoe'' (1952), ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1952), '' Knights of the Round Table'' (1953), '' All the Brothers Were Valiant'' (1953) and ''The Adventures of Quentin Durward'' (1955). After directing ''The Last Challenge'' in 19 ...
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Adventure Film
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, animation, comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction, family, horror, or war. Overview Setting plays an important role in an adventure film, sometimes itself acting as a character in the narrative. They are typically set in far away lands, such as lost continents or other exotic locations. They may also be set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Such struggles and situations that confront the main characters include things like battles, piracy, rebellion, and the creation of empires and kingdoms. A common theme of adventure films is of characters leaving their home or place of comfort and going to fulfill a goal, embarking on travels, quests, tre ...
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Anne Crawford
Imelda Anne Crawford (22 November 1920 – 17 October 1956) was a British film actress, born in Palestine of a Scottish father and an English mother, and brought up in Edinburgh. Biography A contemporary of Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert, Crawford is best remembered for her roles in women's pictures of the 1940s, such as ''Millions Like Us'' (1943), ''Two Thousand Women'' (1944) and ''They Were Sisters'' (1945). She married Wallace Douglas in 1953 and died of leukaemia in London in 1956, aged 35. ''The Times'', on 18 October 1956, reported that she was playing in Agatha Christie's ''The Spider's Web'', at London's Savoy Theatre, when she became ill. Also, that after acting in a stage production of ''The Gift'', about a scientist blinded by an accident, she added a codicil to her will leaving her eyes to the International Eye Bank Eye banks recover, prepare and deliver donated eyes for cornea transplants and research. The first successful cornea transplant was perform ...
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King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a leader of the post-Roman Britons in battles against Saxon invaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He appears in two early medieval historical sources, the ''Annales Cambriae'' and the ''Historia Brittonum'', but these date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, and most historians who study the period do not consider him a historical figure.Tom Shippey, "So Much Smoke", ''review'' of , ''London Review of Books'', 40:24:23 (20 December 2018) His name also occurs in early Welsh poetic sources such as ''Y Gododdin''. The character developed through Welsh mythology, appearing either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated wi ...
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Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a villainous and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale. The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical British chronicle ''Historia Regum Britanniae'', in which she is seduced by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur. In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a prominent story arc is the queen's tragic love affair with her husband's chief knight ...
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Lancelot
Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), also written as Launcelot and other variants (such as early German ''Lanzelet'', early French ''Lanselos'', early Welsh ''Lanslod Lak'', Italian ''Lancillotto'', Spanish ''Lanzarote del Lago'', and Welsh ''Lawnslot y Llyn''), is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend, where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost Kingdom of Benoic, raised in the fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a ci ...
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Borehamwood
Borehamwood (, historically also Boreham Wood) is a town in southern Hertfordshire, England, from Charing Cross. Borehamwood has a population of 31,074, and is within the London commuter belt. The town's film and TV studios are commonly known as Elstree Studios. History One of the earliest mentions of Bosci de Boreham (Wood of Boreham), is in 1188: :"In 1188 Pope Clement granted to the kitchen of the monastery the whole land of Elstree. He also gave to the Abbey the wood of Boreham for the feeding of the swine." In 1776, the House of Lords granted: :"An Act for dividing and closing the Common or Waste Ground, called Boreham Wood Common, in the Parish of Elstree otherwise Idletree, in the County of Hertford." Borehamwood was historically part of the parish of Elstree. A separate ecclesiastical parish of "All Saints, Boreham Wood" was created on 26 February 1909, covering the part of Elstree parish east of the Midland Railway. Despite this change to the ecclesiastical boundari ...
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MGM British Studios
MGM-British was a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer initially established (as MGM London Films Denham) at Denham Film Studios in 1936. It was in limbo during the Second World War; however, following the end of hostilities, a facility was acquired in Borehamwood (one of several known as Elstree Studios), which remained in use until it was closed in 1970. Pre-war MGM London Films Denham Ltd was formed in 1936. The films produced during the initial period at Denham Film Studios were '' A Yank at Oxford'' (1938), ''The Citadel'' (1938), ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1939) and ''Busman's Honeymoon'' (US: ''Haunted Honeymoon'', 1940). The first production head was Michael Balcon. However, he left after a single film and was replaced by Victor Saville. The subsidiary was in abeyance during the war. Meanwhile, Amalgamated Studios Ltd constructed a large studio on the north side of Elstree Way, Borehamwood, between 1935 and 1937. A January 1937 deal for eight films to be made for the American s ...
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The Adventures Of Quentin Durward
''The Adventures of Quentin Durward'', known also as ''Quentin Durward'', is a 1955 British historical film released by MGM. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Pandro S. Berman. The screenplay was by Robert Ardrey, adapted by George Froeschel from the 1823 novel ''Quentin Durward'' by Sir Walter Scott. It was the third in an unofficial trilogy made by the same director and producer and starring Robert Taylor. The first two were ''Ivanhoe'' (1952) and ''Knights of the Round Table'' (1953). All three were made at MGM's British Studios in Borehamwood, near London. Unlike the earlier films, it was scored by Bronislau Kaper rather than Miklós Rózsa, who was busy on other projects at the time. It was the first big-budget film for the British actress Kay Kendall. Other actors included Robert Morley and George Cole. Plot In 1465, honorable but penniless Scottish knight Quentin Durward agrees to go to France to find out if the beautiful young heiress, Isabelle, ...
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Ivanhoe (1952 Film)
''Ivanhoe'' is a 1952 British-American historical adventure epic film directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Pandro S. Berman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was shot in Technicolor, with a cast featuring Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Finlay Currie, and Felix Aylmer. The screenplay is written by Æneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts, and Noel Langley, based on the 1819 historical novel ''Ivanhoe'' by Sir Walter Scott. The film was the first in what turned out to be an unofficial trilogy made by the same director, producer, and star (Robert Taylor). The others were ''Knights of the Round Table'' (1953) and ''The Adventures of Quentin Durward'' (1955). All three were made at MGM-British Studios at Borehamwood, Herts, near London. In 1951, the year of production, one of the screenwriters, Marguerite Roberts, was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and MGM received permission from the Screen Writers Guil ...
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William Caxton
William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage and date of birth are not known for certain, but he may have been born between 1415 and 1424, perhaps in the Weald or wood land of Kent, perhaps in Hadlow or Tenterden. In 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a wealthy London silk Mercery, mercer. Shortly after Large's death, Caxton moved to Bruges, Belgium, a wealthy cultured city in which he was settled by 1450. Successful in business, he became governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London; on his business travels, he observed the new printing industry in Cologne, which led him to start a printing press in Bruges in collaboration with Colard Mansion. When Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV, married the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, they moved ...
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Le Morte D'Arthur
' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source. Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton. Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934, the 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' and that ...
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