← “Plastic tubes and pots and pans, bits and pieces…”
“Perfume came naturally from Paris…” →

“Put our product to the test, you’ll feel just fine…”

Miles O’Keeffe, his helmet of hair, and so many wasted thespians—that, in brief, is Sword of the Valiant. I wrote about this cinematic disaster back in February, when I revisited the movie and found it almost endearing: bad, yes, but usefully inscrutable.

But did you know that Sword of the Valiant was actually a remake? Yes: the 1984 travesty was a remake of a 1973 film written and directed by the same deluded people; it even starred some of the same unfortunate actors. For 35 years, the original movie roiled in the purifying fires of cinematic limbo—until something, probably the recent bestselling success of Simon Armitage’s translation of the original poem, prompted an ill-advised DVD reissue.

So the DVD came out two weeks ago, and Fortune did as Fortune does. For one thing, the Amazon product description mistakenly draws on the listing for a Gawain-related documentary. Worse, though, is the fact that—well, I’ll let the fresh list of one-star reviews tell you the rest of it:

I received this DVD from Amazon, the packaging and DVD label say Sir Gawain but the DVD itself is called “Pike Fishing in Winter” and features two guys pike fishing somewhere in England. At first I thought it was a joke, but pike fishing is all you get.

Firstly, having ordered this DVD I discover it isn’t the film advertised, but a 70 minute documentary. Secondly, when I put the documentary in to play, I get ‘Winter Pike Fishing with Mick Brown and Des Taylor’ …

I didn’t open it to play it, so I don’t know about the fishing others have mentioned, but the CD packaging itself indicates it is a documentary…

Not the 1973 Robert Hardy film. Mislabeled and mismarketed prior to release. I haven’t played it yet, so I don’t know if I got the pike fishing too.

In the words of Sir Gawain himself: “Oops.”

On the off chance any of those disappointed reviewers are still eager for a Gawain video fix, they should check out YouTube. They’ll find numerous versions of the romance, including: an award-winning Irish cartoon with a remarkable stained-glass sensibility (part one; part two; part three); a 1994 live-action mangling with a Green Knight right out of the original Star Trek (part one; part two; part three; part four); and—mirabile visu—an adaptation for paper-bag puppets.

All of the above are better than Sword of the Valiant—although mind you, I can’t promise that they’re any more satisfying than “Pike Fishing in Winter.”

Monday, April 7, 2008, 12:01 am in Arthuriana, Sir Gawain | 2 Comments »

2 responses to “Put our product to the test, you’ll feel just fine…”

  1. # 1 - K. A. Laity wrote:
    Wednesday, April 16, 2008, at 9:10 pm

    Wonderful — I gave a twenty minute paper on the first, oh, six minutes of the film and its homo-erotic subtext. The expanded version of the paper will be in a forthcoming book on masculinities and medievalism. I always use this film when teaching Gawain, although I’d like to get hold of the Murray Head version.

    I love pointing out to my students that O’Keeffe is quite literally only a body as his voice was dubbed. My my, that hair. The students are inevitably stunned, but less so than with the Lambert Beowulf (which scars them for life, or so they tell me).

  2. # 2 - sm wrote:
    Friday, April 25, 2008, at 4:19 pm

    Any erotic text that emerges in the first 6 minutes of a film can hardly be very “sub.” Do you mean “inept?” “boring?

Leave a comment:

(Comments with links may be held briefly for moderation.)

  • Quid plura?

    "Quid plura?" is the blog of Jeff Sypeck, a writer in Washington, D.C.

  • Becoming Charlemagne is available as a Harper Perennial paperback. Order a copy here.

  • cover
  • Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles is now available! Order a copy from Amazon or learn more here.

  • cover
  • Folklore! Chivalry! Mad alliteration! The Tale of Charlemagne and Ralph the Collier: A Translation is available in paperback and as a Kindle e-book.

  • cover
  • Archives

    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • July 2007
    • June 2007
  • Categories

    • applied paleobromatology (6)
    • Arthuriana (14)
    • Balkans (5)
    • Beowulf (10)
    • Best of 2007 (1)
    • Best of 2008 (1)
    • Best of 2009 (1)
    • Best of 2010 (1)
    • Best of 2011 (1)
    • Best of 2012 (1)
    • Best of the First Five Years (1)
    • bookstores (4)
    • Bulgaria (1)
    • Byzantium (1)
    • Caucasus (3)
    • Charlemagne (46)
    • Chaucer (12)
    • Dante (3)
    • Delaware (3)
    • England (4)
    • France (1)
    • galangal (2)
    • gardening (5)
    • gargoyles/grotesques (66)
    • Georgia (3)
    • Germany (4)
    • Iceland (21)
    • Iowa (1)
    • Ireland (2)
    • Kansas (1)
    • literature (80)
    • Lloyd Alexander (31)
    • Longfellow (2)
    • looking up (55)
    • Louisiana (18)
    • Mark Twain (1)
    • Maryland (8)
    • medieval shark week (1)
    • medievalism (130)
    • Merovingians (1)
    • Minnesota (1)
    • miscellaneous (110)
    • Missouri (1)
    • National Cathedral (70)
    • New Jersey (19)
    • New York (7)
    • Old English (14)
    • philanthropy (3)
    • philology (5)
    • politics (13)
    • Rome (1)
    • Scandinavia (1)
    • SF/fantasy (18)
    • Shakespeare (1)
    • Sir Gawain (5)
    • statues (21)
    • teaching (10)
    • Tennyson (2)
    • Theodulf (9)
    • Tolkien (6)
    • translations (17)
    • travel (9)
    • videos (4)
    • Virginia (5)
    • visual arts (2)
    • Washington (47)
    • Washington Irving (3)
    • writing (30)
  • Contact

    • jeffsypeck -at- gmail.com


Quid plura? © 2007 All Rights Reserved. Hosted by ThatHostingPlace.com.
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

This blog uses a modified version of the ShinyRoad 2.1 WordPress theme by Nurudin Jauhari.