# Camelot (film)

Camelot is a 1967 film about the marriage of England's King Arthur to Guinevere, played out amid the pageantry of Camelot.
    Directed by Joshua Logan. Written by Alan Jay Lerner, based on his 1960 play.

## King Arthur

* Merlyn, why have you never taught me love and marriage?
* Proposition: It's far better to be alive than to be dead.
* [singing] And -what of teaching me by turning me to animal and bird, From beaver to the smallest bobolink! I should have had a -whirl At changing to a girl, To learn the way the creatures think!
* Merlyn told me once: Never be too disturbed if you don't understand what a woman is thinking. They don't do it often.
* I dreamed ... I dreamed.
* All we've been through, for nothing but an idea! Something that you cannot taste, smell, or feel; without substance, life, reality, memory.
* I love them and they answer me with pain and torment. Be it sin or not sin, they betray me in their hearts and that's far sin enough. I can feel it in their eyes, I can feel it when they speak, and they must pay for it and be punished. I shall not be wounded and not return it in kind! I'm through with feeble hoping! I demand a man's vengeance! [Calming down] Proposition: I'm a king, not a man. And a civilized king. Could it possibly be civilized to destroy what I love? Could it possibly be civilized to love myself above all? What of their pain and their torment? Did they ask for this calamity? Can passion be selected?
* The adage, "Blood is thicker than water," was invented by undeserving relatives.
* Merlyn! Merlyn, make me a hawk. Let me fly away from here!
* [singing] Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story; And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot!
* [to Mordred] Far more seasoned rascals than you have polished their souls, I advise you, get out the wax. Better to be rubbed clean than rubbed out.
* [angrily] Mordred, I must remind you that I am a civilized man. With occasional lapses.

## Guinevere

* Just when I reach the golden age of eligibility and wooability. Is my fate determined by love and courtship? Oh, no. [Bitterly] Clause one: fix the border; Clause two: establish trade; Clause three: deliver me; Clause four: stop the war; five, six: pick up sticks. How cruel! How unjust! Am I never to know the joys of maidenhood? The conventional, ordinary, garden variety joys of maidenhood?
* [about Mordred] The one thing I can say for him is that he's bound to marry well. Everybody is above him.
* Must we talk about Mordred? This is the first time in a month that he's not coming to dinner and not having him makes it seem like a party!

## Lancelot

* C'est moi!
* I am irritating. I always will be. All fanatics are bores, Pellinore, and I'm a fanatic. Even when I was a child I irritated the other children. I wanted to play their games, but I knew I could not. Even then I was filled with a sense of divine purpose. I'm not saying I enjoy it. All my life I've locked the world out. And, you know, when you lock the world out, you're locked in.

## Others

* Pellinore: Forgive the interruption. Anyone here seen a beast with the head of a serpent, the body of a boar and the tail of a lion, baying like forty hounds?
* Mordred: [to Arthur about Guenevere] What a magnificent dilemma! Let her die, your life is over; let her live, your life's a fraud. Which will it be, Arthur? Do you kill the Queen or kill the law?
* Company: [singing] Guinevere, Guinevere. In that dim, mournful year Saw the men she held so dear Go to war for Guinevere.
* Company: [singing] Guinevere, Guinevere Oh, they found Guinevere In the dying candle's gleam Came the sundown of a dream.

## Dialogue

    Arthur: But even the thought, "I'm not thinking a thought" is thinking, isn't it?
    Merlyn: Yes, and thinking is the sort of thing you should get into the habit of doing as often as possible.
    Arthur: A thousand pardons, Milady. Wait! Don't run. [She stops and looks at him coweringly] Please! I won't harm you.
    Guenevere: You lie! You'll leap at me and throw me to the ground.
    Arthur: I won't do any such thing. [He takes a step toward her. She takes a step backwards. He stops]
    Guenevere: Then you'll twist my arm and tie me to a tree.
    Arthur: But I won't.
    Guinevere: Then you'll sling me over your shoulder and carry me off.
    Arthur: No, no, no! I swear it! By the Sword Excalibur! I swear I won't touch you.
    Guinevere: [Hurt] Why not? [Sudden rage] How dare you insult me in this fashion. Do my looks repel you?
    Arthur: No. You're beautiful.
    Guinevere: Well, then? We're alone. I'm completely defenseless. What kind of a cad are you? Apologize at once.
    Lancelot: The next time you traffic with me, remember... you challenge the right hand of King Arthur!
    Arthur: I am King Arthur!
    Lancelot: What? You... are the king?
    Arthur: Almost the late king...
    Arthur: But for what purpose? Might isn't always right, Jenny.
    Guinevere: Nonsense, dear, of course it is. To be right and lose couldn't possibly be right.
    Lancelot: Dap, you are older than I. You know this Earth better than I. I only fell upon it a few hours ago.
    Dap: What are you talking about?
    Lancelot: Guenevere!
    Arthur: We must arrange for your knighthood.
    Lancelot: No, sire! Invest me because of deeds, not words! Give me an order!
    Arthur: Now?
    Lancelot: This moment! Is there some wrong I can right, some peril I can face, some quest I can undertake?
    Arthur: Well... actually... there's not much going on today. The Queen and some of her court have gone a-maying.
    Lancelot: Gone... a-maying?
    Arthur: Well, it's a sort of... um... picnic? They pick flowers and chase young...
    Lancelot: Picnic?
    Arthur: It's a custom we have here. This is England, you know. And this is the season for gathering flowers.
    Lancelot: Knights? Gathering FLOWERS?
    Arthur: Well, SOMEONE has to do it!
    Arthur: Wrong or right, they have the might, so wrong or right, they're always right, and that's wrong... right?
    Guinevere: Absolutely.
    Lancelot: If the king grants you clemency, you shall be banished. If not, you hang.
    Arthur: Clemency is granted.
    Lancelot: Jenny, I - I love you. God forgive me, but I do.
    Guinevere: Then God forgive us both, Lance.
[Arthur is trying to teach Pellinore about his new court system]
    Arthur: Let us say you are accused of burning down a farm.
    Pellinore: Whose?
    Arthur: Er...let us say, a farmer named...William?
    Pellinore: Well, can't see it happening, but get along.
    Arthur: Now, Pelly, you claim you haven't. What does he do then?
    Pellinore: Well, he keeps his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him!
    Arthur: No, Pellinore. He takes you to court.
    Pellinore: Ah! And we fight there!
    Arthur: No, Pellinore. Look, in the court, there is a prosecutor for Farmer William and a defendant for you.
    Pellinore: Oh, I see! I see! And they fight!
    Arthur: No. In the court there is also a jury, who decides whether you are guilty or not guilty.
    Pellinore: Well, what's the jury got to do with it? None of their damn business in the first place! Any jury finds me guilty, I'll have a whack at every last one of 'em!
    Arthur: Then you'd be charged with murder, Pelly!
    Pellinore: Well, the ruddy thing's endless! Another jury finds me guilty, and I'll have to have a whack at them! And so on and so on, and whacking and whacking--
    Arthur: Oh, Pellinore, forget it! You will never burn down a barn, you will never know a farmer named William and you will never, ever, be found in a court!
    Pellinore: Not without my ruddy sword I won't!
    Pellinore: Who is that, Arthur?
    Arthur: One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle! Run, boy!

## Taglines

* The Most Beautiful Love Story Ever!
* A whole new world of magnificent musical entertainment.

## Cast

* Richard Harris - Arthur
* Vanessa Redgrave - Guinevere
* Franco Nero - Lancelot
* David Hemmings - Mordred
* Lionel Jeffries - King Pellinore
* Laurence Naismith - Merlyn
* Pierre Olaf - Dap

## External links

* Camelot quotes at the Internet Movie Database