A Connecticut Yankee

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court must have been seen by Mel Brooks because you can picture a couple movies of his ( History of the World Part One and Blazing Saddles ) taking their ideas from scenes from this movie. The problem is Brooks's films were a lot better. This movie is supposed to be funny, trust me it was not. In fairness, There is one effective scene involving Will Rogers on a horse with a rope at a joust, but except for that the only reason to watch is Myrna Loy as Morgan Le Fay. Watch Myrna's eyes they are something to behold. I have seen Myrna as the bad girl quite a few times, and this might be her most evil role. As a Myrna fan I can only imagine Will Rogers enjoyed kissing her. With the exceptions of Salma Hayak, Sophia Loren and possibly Elsa Martinelli there is no actress I would prefer to have made out with. I give the film 3/10 stars. One for inspiring better movies the other two for Myrna Loy.

The movie is updated from Mark Twain's 1889 novel, with Will Rogers, as Hank Martin a radio engineer who heads out to a spooky castle sort of pace, where he meets various people, then onto the main body of the story: sentenced to death, the eclipse prediction - which is based on something that actually happened to Christopher Columbus - and the introduction of modern technology and methods: knights getting armor repaired at service stations, telephone switchboards, Model T cars and auto gyros, and Rogers in a tournament with a bunch of armored knights, where he gets to show off rope tricks.

While the visuals are handled nicely, the pacing of the movie is rather slow, both in the way that dialogue is directed, and the editing needs to be quickened; it's a common situation at Fox in 1931. The serious heart of the novel is cut out, and Rogers gets only one great line, a bit of gallows humor. While it's always a pleasure to see Rogers, and there's a fine cast that includes William Farnum and Myrna Loy and Maureen O'Sullivan, this is not among the best of Rogers' vehicles.

This is my first viewing so I had no idea what to expect. It got off to an ominous, foreboding start as Hank, the radio repairman (Will Rogers) encounters a few peculiar people in an odd house. After his sudden "transition" (time travel) back into King Arthur's era circa 528 AD, the sounds of Ye Olde English emerge, of thee's and thou's, being spoken and Will responds with "Can you tell me where the helleth I am?" I had a good laugh over that as it pretty well sets the tone for the whole story -- incongruous dialogue, time periods, mixed in with modern conveniences like a telephone. Oh well, it's entertainment with quite a stretch of the imagination, ie., selling hot dogs at the joust meet. Will's in his element when he's on a horse with a rope in his hand and dealing out justice to his opponent. I'm not sure why conniving Merlin (Mitchell Harris) is so busy scattering sand at every opportunity, or is it stardust, or sawdust.

Myrna Loy in her role as Morgan le Fay appears to be the most well-cast and believable of the lot.

All in all it's rather over-the-edge farce but still fun to watch.

No one has ever gotten the Mark Twain satire down quite right in any of the versions of A Connecticut Yankee that have been filmed including the best known versions, this one and the one done in 1949 starring Bing Crosby. But along the way we've gotten some fine entertainment out of the notion of time travel, very unique at the time that Twain wrote the novel.

With both Will and Bing a built in audience was guaranteed for their respective versions, A Connecticut Yankee being privileged to have two of America's most beloved entertainers taking the role. Each invested their personalities in the part which made both films the success they respectively were.

This version is slightly updated from the novel which takes place at the cusp of the new 20th century. It starts during the present, the present of 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression. Will Rogers is not a blacksmith, he's a radio repairman who is called out on a dark and stormy night to fix a radio in the mansion where some strange characters inhabit. An accident knocks him out and he's taken back some 1400 years to the court of King Arthur at Camelot.

During the course of the film Rogers brings about far more of the "blessings" of technology to Camelot than Crosby did in his film. The absurd climax with the Knights of the Round Table storming Morgan Le Fay's castle with all kinds of 20th century weaponry is the ultimate proof of that.

In the novel Twain had the Yankee's character be his mouthpiece for his views. In that sense Rogers as the voice of the modern era was uniquely suited to the part even though his accent was far more Oklahoma than Connecticut. In a gentler way Rogers made a lot of the same points in real life that he does in this film, in his newspaper columns and on his lecture tours.

Two women who later went to MGM around the same time co-star with Will Rogers in A Connecticut Yankee. Maureen O'Sullivan who was a year away from her breakout role as Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man plays Lady Melisande, the daughter of William Farnum as King Arthur. Young Frank Albertson who Rogers takes under his wing as a protégé is in love with her and the Connecticut Yankee plays cupid. And before she became the perfect American wife Myrna Loy was playing all kinds of villainous roles as she is here as Morgan LeFay. Ironically in The Thin Man where Loy forever changed Loy's image Maureen O'Sullivan also had a prominent role in that classic film.

The most recent version of this often filmed tale is Bad Knight with Martin Lawrence, not a bad version either. However I don't think Martin Lawrence would even say he's quite up there in the public consciousness that Will Rogers or Bing Crosby ever got. Though this film is more Rogers than Twain, that's not a bad thing at all.

First of all, I've heard a lot about Will Rogers over the years and I've always enjoyed his songs. But this movie seems to be a pretty mediocre vehicle for his talents.

First of all, you have Rogers himself, who is uh...... not a Connecticut Yankee by any stretch of the imagination. They should have just called it "An Okie in King Arthur's Court" or something. I mean, he's even doing tricks with the lasso, which I know is a Rogers trademark, but it's pretty loose with the interpretation on Twain's book. Of course since this is a light comedy all the satire of Twain's book is gone, but that's to be expected. But Rogers as the Connecticut Yankee is just not right.

Another thing was the look of the film and the directing, which I found to be very lackluster. I haven't checked but it would not surprise me to find that the director was heavily involved in silent films. It is just a movie that feels like a B movie even though you have Rogers who was a pretty big star at the time. The production values are not up to what you would hope for from MGM, looks more like a Gene Autry movie.

There are a few fun scenes, and it is worth watching for anybody who just wants a look at Rogers' comedy on screen. Basically a kiddie movie though without much to offer adults and would probably bore most modern children.