The Sword in the Stone (1963 film)
The Sword in the Stone is a 1963 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney and released by Buena Vista Distribution. It is based on the novel of the same name by T. H. White, first published in 1938 and then revised and republished in 1958 as the first book of White's Arthurian tetralogy The Once and Future King. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, the film features the voices of Rickie Sorensen, Karl Swenson, Junius Matthews, Sebastian Cabot, Norman Alden, and Martha Wentworth. It was the last animated film from Walt Disney Productions to be released in Walt Disney's lifetime.
Disney first acquired the film rights to the novel in 1939, and there were various attempts at developing the film over the next two decades before production on the film officially began. Bill Peet wrote the story for the film, while the songs were written by the Sherman Brothers. This was the first animated Disney film to feature songs by the Sherman Brothers; they went on to contribute music to such Disney animated feature films as Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977). George Bruns composed the film's score, following his work on the previous two animated Disney films, Sleeping Beauty (1959) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). He also composed the scores of the next three Disney animated feature films, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood (1973).
The film received mixed reviews, but became a box-office success. A live-action remake entered development in 2015 and is set to be directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and released on Disney+.[3]
Plot[edit]
After the King of England, Uther Pendragon, dies without an heir to his throne, a sword magically appears inside an anvil atop a stone, with an inscription proclaiming that whoever removes it will be the future king. Many have attempted unsuccessfully to remove the sword, and the sword becomes forgotten, leaving England in the Dark Ages.
Years later, an 11-year-old orphan named Arthur, commonly called Wart, accidentally scares off a deer his older foster brother Sir Kay was hunting, causing Kay to launch his arrow into the forest. While retrieving the arrow, Arthur meets Merlin, an elderly wizard who lives with his talking pet owl Archimedes. Merlin declares himself Arthur's tutor and returns with him to his home, a castle run by Sir Ector, Arthur's foster father. Ector's friend, Sir Pelinore, arrives to announce that the winner of the upcoming New Year's Day tournament in London will be crowned king. Ector decides Kay will be a contender and appoints Arthur as Kay's squire.
To educate Arthur, Merlin transforms them both into fish. They swim in the castle moat to learn about physics. After the lesson, Arthur is sent to the kitchen as punishment for attempting to relate what happened to Ector and Kay. Merlin enchants the dishes to wash themselves, then takes Arthur out again for another lesson.
For the next lesson, Merlin transforms them both into squirrels to learn about gravity. Arthur almost gets eaten by a wolf, but is saved by a female squirrel who falls in love with him. After they return to human form, Ector accuses Merlin of using black magic on the dishes. Arthur defends Merlin, but Ector punishes Arthur by giving Kay another squire, Hobbs.
Resolving to make amends, Merlin plans on educating Arthur full-time, but Merlin's knowledge of future history confuses Arthur, prompting Merlin to appoint Archimedes as Arthur's teacher. Merlin transforms Arthur into a sparrow and Archimedes teaches him how to fly. Soon after, Arthur encounters Madam Mim, an eccentric, evil witch who is Merlin's nemesis. Merlin arrives to rescue Arthur before Mim can destroy him, and Mim challenges Merlin to a wizards' duel. Despite Mim's cheating, Merlin outsmarts her by transforming into a germ and infecting her, illustrating the importance of knowledge over strength.
On Christmas Eve, Kay is knighted. When Hobbs comes down with the mumps, Ector reinstates Arthur as Kay's squire, which spurs him to happily break the news to his teachers. Archimedes congratulates him, but Merlin, thinking Arthur is forsaking education, rebukes him for staying under Kay's thumb. When Arthur retorts that he's lucky, Merlin angrily transports himself to 20th-century Bermuda.
At the tournament, Arthur realizes he left Kay's sword at the inn. It is closed for the tournament, but Archimedes sees the "Sword in the Stone", which Arthur removes almost effortlessly, unknowingly fulfilling the prophecy. When Arthur returns with the sword, Ector recognizes it and the tournament is halted. Ector places the sword back in its anvil, demanding Arthur prove that he pulled it. He pulls it once again, revealing that he is England's rightful king, earning Ector and Kay's respect and the former's apology.
Later, the newly crowned King Arthur sits in the throne room with Archimedes, feeling unprepared for the responsibility of ruling a country. Merlin returns from Bermuda and resolves to help Arthur become the great king he has foreseen him to be.
Thurl Ravenscroft voiced Sir Bart, one of the knights seen at the jousting tournament. Jimmy MacDonald voiced the Wolf who has several encounters with Arthur and attempts to eat him, but is constantly met with misfortune. Barbara Jo Allen voiced the Scullery Maid who works in Ector's castle and believes Merlin to be an evil sorcerer. Tudor Owen voiced one of the knights or nobles in the crowd during the tournament.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
In early 1939, Walt Disney purchased the film rights to T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone, which he revealed in February.[8] Following the outbreak of World War II, the studio focused instead on producing cartoons for the United States government and armed forces such as Der Fuehrer's Face (1943). In June 1944, following the successful re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney assigned writers to work on The Sword in the Stone, along with Cinderella (1950) and Alice in Wonderland (1951).[9] It continued to be announced that the project was in active development throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.[10][11] In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two animated projects were in development, which were Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone.[12] Around that same time, Disney's elder brother Roy O. Disney attempted to persuade him to discontinue their feature animation division, as enough films remained to make successful re-releases. The younger Disney refused, but because of his plans to build another theme park in the United States, he would approve only one animated film to be released every four years.[13]
Chanticleer was developed by Ken Anderson and Marc Davis, who aimed to produce a feature animated film in a more contemporary setting. They visited the Disney archives and decided to work on adapting the satirical tale after glancing at earlier conceptions dating back to the 1940s.[14] Anderson, Davis, Milt Kahl, and director Wolfgang Reitherman spent months preparing elaborate storyboards for Chanticleer. Following a silent response to one pitch presentation, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!"[15] When the time came to approve either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was, "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it."[16]
Meanwhile, The Sword in the Stone was developed solely by veteran story artist Bill Peet. After Disney had seen the 1960 Broadway production of Camelot, he approved the project to enter production.[17] Ollie Johnston stated that "[Kahl] got furious with Bill for not pushing Chanticleer after all the work he had put in on it. He said, 'I can draw a damn fine rooster, you know'. Bill said, 'So can I.'"[18] Peet recalled about "how humiliated they were to accept defeat and give in to The Sword in the Stone... He allowed them to have their own way, and they let him down. They never understood that I wasn't trying to compete with them, just trying to do what I wanted to work. I was [in] the midst of all this competition, and with Walt to please too."[19]
Writing in his autobiography, Peet said he decided to write a screenplay before producing storyboards, though he found the narrative "complicated, with the Arthurian legend woven into a mixture of other legends and myths" and that finding a direct storyline required "sifting and sorting".[20] After Disney received the first screenplay draft, he told Peet that it should have more substance. Peet lengthened his second draft by elaborating on the more dramatic aspects of the story, which Disney approved of through a phone call from Palm Springs, Florida.[20]
Casting[edit]
Rickie Sorensen, who was cast as Arthur, entered puberty during the film's production, forcing director Wolfgang Reitherman to cast two of his sons, Richard and Robert, to replace him.[21][22] This resulted in Arthur's voice noticeably changing between scenes, and sometimes within the same scene. The three voices also portray Arthur with an American accent, sharply contrasting with the English setting and the accents spoken by most of the other characters.[23] Mari Ness of the online magazine Tor.com suggests, "given that the film is about growing up, this problem might have been overcome" with the three voices being interpreted as symbolizing Arthur's mental and physical development, but "[Reitherman] inexplicably chose to leave all three voices in for some scenes, drawing attention to the problem that they were not the same actor." She notes even further that "two [of the voice actors] were brothers, and sound somewhat similar; the third was not, and sounds distinctly different." Finally, she notes the issue of the American accents of the voices contrasting with the English setting and the accents spoken by most of the other characters in the film, noting "the only positive: the vocal issues with Wart do help distract attention from the fact that the Brits aren't particularly good here, either."[23]
Wolfgang Reitherman estimated that 70 actors read for the part, but none of them had eccentricity that they were seeking, as Wolfgang said that they wanted Merlin to be eccentric, but not hokey. Swenson initially read for Archimedes, but the filmmakers eventually decided to cast him as Merlin.[21]
Animation[edit]
The film continued the Xerox method of photocopying drawings onto animation cels that had been used in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). An additional animation technique, "touch-up", was created during production to replace the clean-up process. The clean-up process had required assistant animators to transfer the directing animators' sketches onto new sheets of paper, which were then copied onto the animation cels. To do a touch-up, the assistants would instead draw directly on the animators' sketches. This streamlined the process, but it also caused assistants of directing animator Milt Kahl to fear they would ruin his linework.[24]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
During its initial release, The Sword in the Stone earned an estimated $4.75 million in box office rentals in the United States and Canada.[35] It garnered $2.5 million in box office rentals during its 1972 re-release[36] and $12 million during its 1983 re-release.[37] The film has had a lifetime domestic gross of $22.2 million in North America.[2]
Critical reception[edit]
The Sword in the Stone received mixed reviews from critics, who thought that its humor failed to balance out a "thin narrative".[38] Gene Arneel of Variety wrote that the film "demonstrates anew the magic of the Disney animators and imagination in character creation... But one might wish for a script which stayed more with the basic story line rather than taking so many twists and turns which have little bearing on the tale about King Arthur as a lad."[39] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film, claiming it is "an eye-filling package of rollicking fun and thoughtful common sense. The humor sparkles with real, knowing sophistication — meaning for all ages — and some of the characters on the fifth-century landscape of Old England are Disney pips."[40] Philip K. Scheuer, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, described the film as "more intimate than usual with a somewhat smaller cast of characters—animal as well as human. Otherwise, the youngsters should find it par the usual Disney cartoon course. It may not be exactly what T. H. White had in mind when he wrote this third of his sophisticated trilogy about King Arthur, but it's a good [bit] livelier than the stage Camelot derived from another third."[41]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 31 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A decent take on the legend of King Arthur, The Sword in the Stone suffers from relatively indifferent animation, but its characters are still memorable and appealing."[42] Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing that "delightful" classic brings Arthur legend to life.[43] In his book The Best of Disney, Neil Sinyard states that, despite not being well known, the film has excellent animation, a complex structure, and is actually more philosophical than other Disney features. Sinyard suggests that Walt Disney may have seen something of himself in Merlin, and that Mim, who "hates wholesome sunshine", may have represented critics.[38]
Accolades[edit]
In 1964, The Sword in the Stone was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of Music—Adaptation or Treatment. It lost the award to Irma la Douce (1963).[44]
In 2008, The Sword in the Stone was one of the 50 films nominated for the American Film Institute's Top 10 Animated Films list, but it was not selected as one of the top 10.[45]
Original songs performed in the film include:
Deleted songs from the film include:
