Camelot, then, is exactly what we were promised: ornate, visually beautiful, romantic and staged as the most lavish production in the history of the Hollywood musical. If that's what you like, you'll like it. I'll just crouch in the corner here and gnaw my haunch of beef and send the wench to fetch more ale.

There are times when musical/comedy elements and the darker, serious drama of the love triangle war with each other. This is one of the great romantic tragedies of all time, and the film falls short of doing it justice.

The film loses steam, sabotaged by Joshua Logan's too-obvious direction and receiving little help from a score by Lerner and Loewe that remains one of their minor efforts.

What it basically needed in its transfer to the screen was a drenching in cinema magic to remove all the dull and pretentious patches of realism and romantic cliché that kept it from sparkling in the theater. And that's what we all hoped it would have. Well, it hasn't, alas.

Unfortunately, there is nothing royal about Camelot's carious screen version. It has been brought crunchingly down to earth by the churlish touch of Director Joshua Logan.