Over the weekend, the BBC’s current King Arthur reinvention television program, “Merlin,” held a Comic-Con panel. During the session one audience member asked two of the show’s stars, those playing the young lead Merlin and the stern King Uther, what was their favorite Arthurian screen adaptation. Both replied, “the Disney one.”
While this says something about the distressingly poor quality of most Arthurian film adaptations, it also speaks to the enduring excellence of “The Sword in the Stone.” Yet for some reason, the 1963 animated movie rarely gets much attention, especially amongst its Disney peers.
I can understand why some might be inclined to avoid the movie. It does adopt a rambling pace. But those who let that deter them from a viewing are missing out.
“Sword in the Stone” takes a page from its source material, T.H. White’s then-contemporary tome “The Once and Future King,” and follows a structure more episodic than linear. The story traces a series of incidents in Wart’s life rather than having much of an overall framework (despite the always-lurking promise of the sword in the stone).
When most viewers already know how the story will end, it’s wiser to flesh out the maturing episodes in Wart’s life, especially when they’re all as breathlessly exhilarating as those in the movie. From gliding through the murky castle moat, skipping through the trees as a squirrel, soaring through the skies, the engaging transformation duel between Merlin and Mim with its clever ending, and most of all, the dancing books and teacups.
I don’t think any other image in any media fired my young imagination more than of that packing dance, books bopping in the air in line ahead of teacups and a feisty sugar pot. The giddy genius of “Higitus Figitus” and its reprise totally makes up for the any of the movie’s flaws.
The sequence may echo the anthropomorphic mops in “Fantasia,” released nearly a decade before, but the unabashed glee Merlin clearly feels in his powers, something he manages to keep through all his long life, is more infectious than the somewhat grim ending of “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
But that moment occurs at only the 12th minute in the movie, albeit with a brief reprise later. If the great moments in “The Sword in the Stone” were all the movie had to offer, it would deserve some of its underappreciated status. However, the movie has its characters to tie it together.
“Sword in the Stone” gives us Wart’s knobby-kneed earnestness, wonder, and later, consternation at the trappings of his throne. We have Merlin’s infectious absent-minded merriment, a trait that ends up being as sly as it is cartoonishly entertaining; if I lived constantly bombarded with visions of the future and even the occasional slip forwards in time, I’d be rather discombobulated too. The gruff and spluttering Archimedes, though an owl, plays as the perfect bickering foil to Merlin’s effervescence and Wart’s wide-eyed naivete.
I still do have some qualms with the film, like its lack of positive female presence (as excellent as Mad Madame Mim is, she’s still a villain, even if one of Disney’s most insanely entertaining). Yet the movie makes me forgive it once again with another fantasy moment towards its conclusion, this one quieter than its predecessors but no less moving.
Arthur’s hands enclosing on the sword in the stone, calling forth ethereal light and song, work as a metaphor for my experience reading fantasy growing up. I wouldn’t be surprised if that moment in this movie implanted that almost reverential idea and feeling in my head whenever I turned back the covers of my mythology and fantasy books.
These moments in “Sword in the Stone” combine with its energetic characters, lush animation (pay attention to the water on the moat top, the way it glistens and shines in the light, and the wavy watercolor reflections of the characters wandering above its surface), make it yet another of one of Disney’s most unfairly underappreciated films.
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