A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Tay Garnett

Writers:

Mark Twain (novel)
Edmund Beloin (writer)

Release Date:

22 April 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family | Fantasy | Musical

Tagline:

Its laughter will ring through the centuries!

Plot:

A singing mechanic from 1912 finds himself in Arthurian Britain.

Plot Keywords:

Technology | Time Travel | Blacksmith | Merlin The Magician | Back In Time

Cast

Bing Crosby	...	Hank Martin
Rhonda Fleming	...	Alisande La Carteloise
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Lord Pendragon / King Arthur (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
William Bendix	...	Sir Sagramore
Murvyn Vye	...	Merlin
Virginia Field	...	Morgan Le Fay
Joseph Vitale	...	Sir Logris
Henry Wilcoxon	...	Sir Lancelot
Richard Webb	...	Sir Galahad
Alan Napier	...	High Executioner
Julia Faye	...	Lady Penelope
Mary Field	...	Peasant woman
Ann Carter	...	Peasant girl

Also Known As:

A Yankee in King Arthur's Court (UK)

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by MCA ever since.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the joust between Hank and Lancelot, cranes are used to lift them to their horses. Those cranes - whose obvious purpose is to make Martin and Lancelot look utterly ridiculous - are copied from an scene in Olivier's The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944), and are totally fictional; in reality, a full suit of armor did not weigh more than the full equipment of a modern day infantryman, and knights were drilled to be fully able to mount a horse without needing any silly mechanical aids.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Hank Martin: Here ya are.
[pays taxi driver]
Hank Martin: Hey, has this castle always had four turrets?
Pendragon Castle door man: Always.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Time Travel: Fact, Fiction and Fantasy (1985) (TV)

Soundtrack:

BUSY DOING NOTHING

Quite Enjoyable

My youngest sister and I have a tradition of watching old movies that are set in older times. "Jason and the Argonauts" was classic; she's young enough to get scared by the realistic effects of present day, so the special effects in these movies just makes her--and I--laugh. But this movie was different. It was low on the special effects, which 86ed our tradition, but we had fun watching it all the same. It was enjoyable and funny, with an easy plot to follow (which always helps when one watches a movie with a seven-year-old).

If you want my advice, watch it. You'll be entertained, even if the same idea was copied 10,000 times.