Hollywood Avalon, episode 12 - Camelot, Part I (1960/1981)

Mary Versus the Movies

We start the first of a two-part series examining the musical Camelot, the Broadway hit based on T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, which I recently re-read in preparation. For part one, we look at both the original cast recording from 1960, as well as two clips from the Ed Sullivan show, featuring Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as Guenevere. Unfortunately, this is all we could find of that particular version of the show. We were, however, able to find a 1981 stage revival starring Richard Harris and Meg Bussart and filmed for HBO.

The 1981 production differs from the original production, streamlining some elements, cutting some characters, but largely is the same show. In both cases, the effort to condense a 700-page novel into a two and a half hour musical greatly simplifies some of the driving philosophy of the book—as much a meditation on politics and the rise of fascism as it is a consciously-anachronistic fantasy and elegy for a dying world (very much reading like Lord of the Rings meets A Connecticut Yankee). However, focusing on the love triangle and Arthur’s conundrum of balancing justice and mercy, might and right, makes for an effective musical, one which even influenced the popular culture conception of the then-current Kennedy administration.

In our next episode, we will examine the 1967 film production of the same musical.

1960 Broadway Original Cast Recording: Starring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, David Hurst, Robert Coote, Roddy McDowall, and Robin Stewart.

1981 Revival: Starring Richard Harris, Meg Bussert, Richard Muenz, James valentine, Barrie Ingham, Richard Backus, and Thor Fields. Music by Frederick Loewe. Lyrics and Book by Alan Jay Lerner.

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