The Sword in the Stone (Remastered)

Merry old England is merry no longer. The old king has passed away leaving no heir, and the whole country has been thrown into a state of chaos. Wars are won and lost as rivals vie for control. And then, a miracle... from heaven itself comes a sword; a sword thrust deep within an anvil atop a huge stone. Engraved below the hilt are the immortal words ‘Whoso pulleth out this sword from this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of England’. Although many attempt the feat, all fail, and over the years that follow the sword in the stone falls into myth; overgrown with weeds and largely forgotten.

Fast-forward many years and the great wizard Merlin (Karl Swenson) sits in his forest cottage awaiting the arrival of a young boy called Arthur (voiced by no less than three separate actors Rickie Sorenson, Richard Reitherman, and Robert Reitherman). Arthur, or Wart as he is more commonly known, is a servant of the local lord Sir Ector (Sebastian Cabot) and dreams only of becoming the squire to Sir Ector’s son, Kay (Norman Alden). But Merlin has foreseen a much greater destiny for this skinny young boy, and taking Wart under his wing, he travels home with him to take up an unwelcome residence in Sir Ector’s castle.

"Higitus figitus migitus mum, pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!"

At once Merlin begins the lad’s education; transforming him into a variety of animals to teach some valuable lessons in life. As a small fish, Wart is menaced by a giant pike in the castle moat and must rely on his brain to win over brawn. As a squirrel Wart must fend off the advances of a determined female; learning about compassion and the ways of the heart. Finally, as a small bird Wart learns not only to fly, but never to trust the evil, ugly old witch Madame Mim.

But suddenly, the whole country is in a tiz! A tournament is announced to find the next king of England, and Wart is to accompany Jay to London as his squire. Soon Wart finds himself in need of a sword and in need of great of haste...

An animated re-telling of T.H White’s classic Arthurian legend, Disney’s The Sword in the Stone followed hot on the heels of the highly successful 101 Dalmatians. Sandwiched between Dalmatians and the equally successful The Jungle Book, this often overlooked classic was only a modest hit back in 1963; at least compared with its Disney contemporaries.

However, The Sword in the Stone remains one of my favourite Disney productions; due primarily to its lack of the gushing-sentimentality or over-moralising that makes many of Uncle Walt’s productions almost unwatchable. The comedy, having much of its basis in post-modern references to ‘60s America, alternates between light, subtle touches and Looney Tunes inspired slapstick. Although there are a few sequences that might be just a touch scary for our littlest viewers, the deft mixture of laughs and scares that characterised many of Disney’s early productions is again reproduced here. The results are a charming, truly enjoyable film; without doubt, The Sword in the Stone is a film that can be enjoyed by young and old, over and over again.

In terms of its quality of animation, The Sword in the Stone displays very simple, hand-drawn characters and backgrounds, and I was surprised at how refreshing I found the style after all the anime I’ve been watching lately. Charming to the last, it contains some beautiful and technically impressive scenes; the most sumptuous being the sequence where Arthur and Merlin swim in the castle moat. Watching this production, now approaching 40 years old, it dawned on me just how timeless the animation medium really is.

The full-frame image is bright and sharp, with deep, vivid colours that display no hint of bleeding or chroma noise. Black level is perfect, and film-to-video artefacts such as aliasing and telecine wobble are nowhere to be seen. On the whole, film artefacts are remarkably sparse (I assume as a result of some restoration work), with a small number frequently dotting the image (hardly to be noticed), but with still the odd one-second deluge still to be seen. Despite suffering a little for its age, I found the level perfectly acceptable, although I did see what I thought was a single missed end-of-reel marker. I could be wrong.

In terms of compression artefacts, the image suffers from the slightest amount of macro-blocking on a number of the slow fades, but other than that all is well. There is also a slight amount of film grain to be seen in the backgrounds of a few scenes; but being an inherent part of the source material, it’s easily forgiven.

All in all, while I have no idea whether the image provided here is any improvement over the original release, Buena Vista's The Sword in the Stone is a perfectly acceptable digital transfer of this family classic; certainly it's about as good as the film is ever going to look.

Without doubt the primary reason for Buena Vista’s re-release of The Sword in the Stone is the remastering of the original mono soundtrack into a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. As you can imagine, working with only a simplistic mono source, there was only so much sound that they could tease out into the four extra channels, but their efforts have not been in vain. The resulting mix is certainly an improvement over the original; providing an enjoyable and serviceable compliment to the film.

While remaining primarily centre-dominant - the majority of the film’s foley effects have remained with the dialogue in the centre channel - it is the film’s score, mixed to the front and surround channels, that has received the majority of the 5.1 treatment. Despite displaying zero channel separation, the results are pleasingly immersive. Like many early Disney titles, subtle musical accompaniment is used continually and to great effect to accentuate the gestures and movements of the main characters, and these all get the surround treatment. Despite featuring some atrocious faux-English accents, and having to share its channel with most of the foley work, the dialogue is delivered clearly and distinctly from the centre.

Obviously there’s still room for improvement. For example the rudimentary echo that is applied at times to the dialogue has not been transferred to the surround channels, and still sounds flat from the centre. But all in all, this audio mix retains the simplicity and charm of the original, whilst definitely making good use of the home theatre environment.

There's one other marked improvement in Buena Vista's re-release of The Sword in the Stone, and that is the addition of extras! Accessed via nicely-animated, non-anamorphic menus, a small amount of additional material has been provided; stuff that your little ones will no doubt enjoy.

• Knight for a Day: (7:06) In this classic cartoon from 1965, Goofy plays the inept squire Cedric who is unwittingly entered in a medieval jousting tournament and beats the reigning champ Sir Cumference to win the hand of a fair princess. Full-frame (and not the original aspect ratio), it displays some film artefacts and a little telecine wobble, but looks great with impressive colour.

• Brave Little Tailor: (9:01) The sickly sweet Mickey Mouse stars in the well-known tale of the little tailor who killed seven in one blow and is sent out to deal with the local giant. At least he gets Princess Minnie as reward for being crushed to a bloody pulp. Full-frame and with a fair number of film artefacts, there’s some real retro value here, with this classic dating from 1938.

• Music Magic Featurette: (7:48) The Sherman Brothers, the songwriting team behind the film’s classic tunes, talk about how they came up with many of the songs, including the film’s signature - Higitus Figitus. They play a couple of the songs that never made it into the film, and we see how their success with The Sword in the Stone cemented their role in future Disney productions.

• Higitus Figitus: (2:43) An episode of the pre-karaoke Disney’s Songbook that features Merlin’s signature tune with the words overlaid, allowing your little ones to sing it over and over and over and over... With the film footage shown here, it is easy to see what a wonderful job the restoration team has done on the main feature.

• That’s What Makes the World Go Round: (2:43) Another episode of Disney’s Songbook, this time for the film’s other major tune. Again, the improvement due to the film’s restoration is clear for all to see.

• The Sword in the Stone Scrapbook: A photo gallery containing 28 images of character concept art, 18 behind the scenes photographs and animation cells, and 15 publicity shots detailing movie posters and related Disneyland installations.

Although a film that is less widely recognised than some of its Disney stable mates, I have no hesitation in recommending Buena Vista’s re-release of The Sword in the Stone to anyone looking to increase their Disney collection, or looking to find a babysitter for their little sprouts. This is one of my favourite Disney films (the list of those I can actually sit through is short) and despite its age, it has scrubbed up remarkably well on DVD. Retaining the charm of early animated features, and yet uncharacteristically free of the moralistic baggage that the Disney moniker seems to imply, The Sword in the Stone is a classic animated feature film for the whole family.