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SWORD OF THE VALIANT: THE LEGEND OF SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
aka
CLASH OF THE SWORDS
Rating: 
USA. 1983.
Director – Stephen Weeks, Screenplay – Stephen Weeks, Philip M. Breen & Howard C. Pen, Based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Producers – Yoram Globus & Menahem Golan, Photography – Peter Hurst & Freddie Young, Music – Ron Geesin, Production Design – Maurice Fowler & Derek Nice. Production Company – Golan-Globus.
Cast:
Miles O’Keeffe (Sir Gawain), Cyrielle Claire (Linet), Leigh Lawson (Humphrey), Sean Connery (The Green Knight), Ronald Lacey (Oswald), Trevor Howard (King Arthur), Lila Kedrova (Queen of Lyonesse), Wilfred Brambell (Friar), Emma Sutton (Morgan-le-Fay), John Rhys-Davies (Baron Fortinbrass), David Rappaport (The Sage), Peter Cushing (Seneschal)
Plot: As King Arthur’s court gathers for the Yuletide feast, The Green Knight appears, offering a challenge to any knight who can decapitate him in one blow – although if they fail the Green Knight may claim their head. However the knights have become lazy and apathetic and only the young apprentice Gawain is willing to step forward, being quickly knighted by Arthur so that he can accept the challenge. He succeeds in decapitating the Knight – however the Knight is a magician and is able to pick up his severed head and put it back on. Gawain begs for his life and so the Green Knight gives him a riddle to solve and one year in which to do so before his head is forfeit. And so Gawain sets forth on a quest to find the answer.
This is one of a host of films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian (1982) and seeking to exploit the new fad for sword-and-sorcery. Though English-shot, it was produced by American-based Israeli producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. During the 1980s Golan-Globus made an awful lot of cheap Chuck Norris films and several other ventures into the sword-and-sorcery cycle, notably the Italian-made Hercules (1983), The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1985), The Barbarians (1987), Gor (1987) and Masters of the Universe (1987).
Sword of the Valiant comes from a more venerable source than most of the other sword-and-sorcery films made around the time – in this case an epic poem originally written in the 14th Century, author unknown. Interestingly director Stephen (I, Monster) Weeks had previously made an adaptation of the story with the obscure Gawain and the Green Knight (1973), starring singer Murray Head as Gawain. In fact with Sword of the Valiant, Weeks has simply remade the 1973 film and seemingly even reused the same script, retaining the same elements (such as the mythic land of Lyonesse) that he added to the story the first time around.
The film is an entirely average entry in the sword-and-sorcery sub-genre. Weeks manages a competent airing of the story in places. The middle tends to get patchy and drag through a lot of episodic set-pieces. The film’s budgetary shortcomings show through in some occasionally tatty sets but Weeks at least covers things with a self-effacing, if distractingly modern, sense of humour. The likes of Sean Connery and John Rhys-Davies seem to be struggling to keep straight faces. Certainly the sight of Connery in green facepaint and leaf-bedecked wig provides a good deal of unintentional camp value. Miles O’Keeffe, previously seen as Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1981), does okay with the role despite a thoroughly unconvincing wig. In subsequent tv rescreenings today, the film has gained a real turkey reputation.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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