Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot (1982/Acorn Media/Musical)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: C Musical: B
Many know
about the musical Camelot, know that
there was a big hit movie version in 1967 and that there was a tentative
connection at the time to the Kennedy Legacy, still alive and well at the
time. For Richard Harris, it was one of
the biggest triumphs of his long, enduring career. While the 1967 film needs restoration and
Warner Bros. is certainly going to see to that, Harris revisited the work in
the early days of cable TV and he essentially remade it in 1982.
Marty
Callner was in the middle of directing music concerts for cable, home video and
other uses when he took on this project, then went on to be a major Music Video
director, especially for the unfortunate revival of Aerosmith. This version of the musical runs 147 minutes
versus 179 minutes for the 1967 theatrical film version, but is pretty full and
is one of the shows from the 1980 revival.
Alan Jay Lerner himself used the film version instead of the original
play for this taping and now, Acorn Media has issued it on DVD.
I always
found the film version a little stuffy and stagy, something that may or may not
hold as such in a future upgrade, but this version has an amazing amount of energy,
good pacing and does it in such a way that never cheapens or undercuts the
work. If anything, being restricted to a
stage versus being bogged down by sets and master shots work to its advantage. That it came out the same year as Francis
Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart
and the watershed year for Music
Video is no surprise.
This is a
remarkable taping for the time, resembling the pace of the Musical versus stuff
“quality” TV and with so much music (often bad and junky) permeating our media
today, this holds up quite well. Harris
is joined by Meg Bussert as Queen Guenevere, Barrie Ingham as King Pellinore,
Richard Muenz as Lancelot and James Valentine as Merlin. The singing ands acting is good and as
engaging as its cast. Long unavailable,
now you can judge for yourself if this version of Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot is the best with Harris or ever.
The 1.33
X 1 image is unfortunately soft and shot in old analog NTSC video, which has
not aged too well, but has some good color just the same. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is better,
though shows signs of the age of the original recording. The combination is still watchable and
involving despite these limits. Extras
include text on Harris, Lerner & Loewe, production notes by Bussert in the
DVD case and a printable DVD-ROM of the Playbill.
- Nicholas Sheffo
