joe-pearce-1 Review of The Sword and the Rose

The Sword and the Rose (1953)

The Most Delightful Screenplay of Any Disney Live-Action Film

[9/10 · 19 August 2015]

Amazingly, although this film is 62 years old, having come out when I was a teenager, and stars a load of some of my favorite English actors (Glynis Johns, James Robertson Justice and Michael Gough, to name only three), I had never seen it until tonight. I was absolutely amazed at how delightful it was, how great and authentic every scene in it looked, how seriously the actors took their very excellent dialogue - it's a bit more of a comedy than anything else, but it has its dramatic moments - and just the general air of intelligence that permeated what was, of course, a Disney film primarily intended for young audiences. Yet much in the screenplay was quite adult, perhaps most especially Mary Tudor's idea of getting the old French King (and her new husband) to imbibe liberally of the wine at their wedding festivities in order to incapacitate him and not have to consummate their marriage that night. That may not be very much in 2015, but in 1953 it was nearly licentious and quite a great deal to put into a Disney film meant primarily for kids. Of course, the trick here is that if one accepts the overly romantic nature of the film, it is one that will appeal to most intelligent adults, too, if only due to the excellence of the dialogue in the hands of Johns and Justice. And at the start I actually thought Michael Gough was going to play somebody truly noble - Michael Gough, noble? - but by the middle of the film he was deep into his usual villainy; one should never trust Michael Gough any more than one might have trusted Victor Jory a decade or two earlier! Anyway, the wrestling scene, the Mary Tudor ball and the dance introduced into it, the hunting scene, etc. looked totally authentic to me, whether they really were or not, and remember folks, this is all make-believe and made to be enjoyed rather than examined too closely. All in all, I think this has immediately become my favorite Disney live-action film (certainly of the "costume-variety" ones) thanks to the wonderful give-and-take of the dialogue. I think it achieves 100% of what was intended by its makers, and it's hard to find fault with that!