A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (1949) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Tay Garnett
Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Cedric Hardwicke,
William Bendix, Murvyn Vye, Virginia Field,
Joseph Vitale, Henry Wilcoxon, Alan Napier
In a Technicolor musical based on Mark Twain's novel, a blacksmith-turned-auto-mechanic in 1905 gets conked on the head and comes to in the court at Camelot, where he introduces the Dark Ages to matches, safety pins, magnets and firearms. He also teaches Rhonda Fleming how to wink. Fleming makes faces. Hardwicke wheezes and sneezes. Bendix plays the movie's equivalent of Sancho Panza. (There's even a Rocinante, a horse named "Tex".) Bendix, Hardwicke and Crosby cavort down the road in a musical number that looks like something out of "The Wizard of Oz". Bing is Bing, no matter what era he drops down in.
Rhonda Fleming
(1923-2020)
