Another Movie Replica: The Black Knight, 1954

photos are stills from this clip posted on TCM

We were going to do one post listing all the movies we know of so far that contain Stonehenge in some form. We’d already posted the movies This Is Spinal Tap and The Colour of Magic, and we thought we could round up the ones that were left in one quick post. Then we watched this video again. Lolz!!!1! It deserves a post of its own!

A synopsis of this section of the movie (from a full synopsis on this page) reads: “John, as the Black Knight, rides off to summon Arthur’s knights, as Linet, the abbot and the remaining monks are taken by the Vikings to the mysterious rocks of Stonehenge, where they are readied as sacrifice. Arthur, John and the knights arrive in time to rescue Linet and the clergymen and destroy Stonehenge.” But, trust us, this does not capture the madness of the wildly dancing girls, the heavily made-up so-called virgin about to be sacrificed, and the wild priests or druids presiding over it, let alone the dramatic rescue of said virgin and the about-to be roasted monks. Don’t you just hate those evil pagans?! 😉

Then, of course, there’s the pulling down of the stones at the end of the sequence. They come down quite easily,  pulled by knights on horses.  Think how that would have impacted on Britain’s tourist trade! Reminds us of National Lampoon’s European Vacation in which Chevy Chase backs into one trilithon and the whole thing goes down like dominoes. D***ed Americans!!

Score for this replica: 7½ druids. We think they did a fine job of mocking up what Stonehenge might have looked like long ago, considering it was 1954. As a matter of fact, we think they may have used the Maryhill replica (see here for our post on that one) for this aerial shot and just mocked up the parts they needed for the close-ups. Still, nicely done.

Our thanks to Bob Bradlee aka StonehengeGuy for steering us to this classic Stonehenge depiction. It is good to laugh!

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6 thoughts on “Another Movie Replica: The Black Knight, 1954

  1. Tess was filmed at the Real Stonehenge.
    If anyone can get a full copy of the The Black Knight I would rally appreciate one!

  2. Wow, that’s an even more impressive mock-up, then! Maybe that’s Spain. It would explain the brown.

  3. According to the Internet Movie Database, The Black Knight was filmed in Buckinghamshire England, Glamorgan Wales, and Spain. Too bad they didn’t film it at Maryhill. The scenes of Druids vs Kniggets and Vikings vs Virgins would have looked so much classier with the Columbia River Gorge in the background!

  4. Thanks, Pete! Another for my list! That makes seven and I have a feeling there are more. I’ll have to find out what part of that movie includes Stonehenge so I can see it and get stills. Do you know if they made a replica for it or if it was filmed at Stonehenge?

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