Knights of the Round Table (1954 Film)

Knights of the Round Table is a 1953 British-American historical Technicolor 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 that studio. The screenplay was by Talbot Jennings, Jan Lustig 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).

The cast includes 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.

The film has some sequences shot near Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, with local people as extras. Scenes for the first battle were shot at Luttrellstown Castle Estate in Co. Dublin, Ireland. Woodland scenes and the hawking scenes were shot at Ashridge Forest, Herts. The Torquilstone Castle set designed by Alfred Junge for Ivanhoe (1952) was expanded and re-dressed as Camelot. Most of the indoor filming was at MGM-British Studios, Borehamwood, Herts.