From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sword in the Stone
Directed by	Wolfgang Reitherman
Produced by	Walt Disney
Written by	T.H. White (book) Bill Peet (story)
Starring	Sebastian Cabot Karl Swenson Rickie Sorensen Junius Matthews
Music by	Richard M. Sherman (songs) Robert B. Sherman (songs) George Bruns
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s)	December 25, 1963 (U.S. release)
Running time	79 minutes
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Sword in the Stone is a 1963 animated feature film produced by Walt Disney and it was originally released to the theaters on December 25, 1963. The eighteenth full-length animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, it was the last Disney animated feature released while Walt Disney was still alive.

The film is loosely based on the novel The Sword in the Stone, the first book of T.H. White’s tetralogy The Once and Future King. From Merlin’s statement that The Times won't come out for another 1200 years, it may be extrapolated that the film is set circa A.D. 600.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Voice Cast 3 Songs 4 Animation 5 Trivia 6 Worldwide release dates 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

The Sword in the Stone follows the future King Arthur’s life during his adolescence and education by the wizard Merlin. The film starts with the introduction of the sword in an anvil. On it, it says, "Who so Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of All England."

Unfortunately, nobody could pull the sword out of the stone, and the miracle had not worked. It was soon forgotten, and England was left without a King. With no law and order, this was a Dark Age in which men lived in fear of each other.

Some years later, Merlin, a wizard, has made a prediction that someone would drop through the declared spot of the roof, onto a chair in Merlin's cottage. He predicted that Arthur would be that person. Arthur, called "Wart" by his family, is a 12-year-old orphan who lives with Sir Ector, his foster father, and Kay, his older foster brother. One day, as Wart searches the woods for a lost arrow, he meets the wizard Merlin and his talking pet owl Archimedes. Merlin sees great potential in the boy and commits himself to Arthur's education, which is to consist of reading, science, and magical transformations. Sir Ector, on the other hand, plans to teach Wart about fighting and chivalry to prepare him to be Kay's squire.

For his first transformation lesson, Merlin turns Wart into a perch. In fish form, Wart is chased and attacked by a huge pike. He works to outsmart the beast but is nearly caught. Archimedes flies down and plucks Wart from the pike’s jaws, saving him, but the owl later denies any altruism, claiming instead, "I intended to eat him! Young perch is my favorite dish! You know that!"

For his second lesson, Merlin transforms Wart to a squirrel. Though Wart begins by learning about the principle of gravity, he ends up learning about the birds and the bees and male-female relationships when he runs into a female squirrel who becomes infatuated with him. Merlin is amused until another female squirrel finds him attractive as well, and the student and teacher are forced to fend off the amorous attentions of both females. After a wolf nearly eats Wart, Merlin transforms both of them back into humans. While Merlin’s squirrel companion is merely horrified and then angry at the wizard, Wart’s companion is visibly heartbroken. He then learns that romantic love is stronger than gravity.

For his last lesson, Merlin transforms Wart into a bird. Merlin doesn’t join him; instead, Archimedes teaches Wart the principles of flight. Wart’s skill and enjoyment rapidly become apparent to Archimedes, but his daring forces him to flee from the pursuit of a hawk. During his escape, Wart is taken hostage by "The Marvelous Mad Madam Mim," a witch in competition with Merlin. She claims that her magic, which is based on selfishness and trickery, is more useful than Merlin's magic, which is "for educational purposes." After Merlin locates his hostage student, Merlin and Mim engage in a wizards' duel in which each seeks to defeat the other. As they transform into a series of creatures, it seems that Mim’s dragon form will win. However, Merlin transforms himself into a germ and infects her. She is defeated, bedridden and furious.

Later, Wart begins his service as squire to Kay. Merlin, disappointed that Wart still prefers war games to academics, transports himself to 20th-century Bermuda (unwittingly, through his exclamation of "Blow me to Bermuda!").

Ector, Kay, and Wart travel to London for a New Year's tournament which will decide who will be the next King of England. As Kay’s turn to fight approaches, Wart realizes that he has forgotten Kay's sword at their inn. He tries to retrieve it, but the door is locked, and he frantically searches the town for another sword for Kay. He sees a sword protruding from an anvil on a stone in a churchyard, and pulls the sword from the stone, unwittingly fulfilling the sword’s prophecy and making himself king.

Though Sir Ector, Kay, and the other knights initially don’t believe Wart is the foreordained king, they are forced to accept him when it becomes clear after repeated tries by others that he alone can pull the sword from the stone. Arthur, feeling unprepared and apprehensive of his failure, calls to Merlin for help. After the wizard appears and the facts become apparent, Merlin is elated to find that Wart will be the King Arthur that he has seen in the future. Merlin tells Arthur that he will rise and lead an order of heroes, and reveals other anachronistic information.

• Sebastian Cabot: The Narrator/Sir Ector
• Karl Swenson: Merlin
• Rickie Sorensen/Richard Reitherman/Robert Reitherman: Arthur/Wart
• Junius Matthews: Archimedes the Owl
• Ginny Tyler: Little Girl Squirrel
• Martha Wentworth: Granny Squirrel/Madame Mim/The Scullery Maid
• Norman Alden: Kay
• Alan Napier: Sir Pelinore
• Barbara Jo Allen: Scullery Maid
• Thurl Ravenscroft: Knight at Tournament

• "The Sword in the Stone"
• "Higitus Figitus"
• "That's What Makes the World Go Round"
• "A Most Befuddling Thing"
• "Mad Madame Mim"

This list may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this list. It may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate.

• Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston said that Milt Kahl's animations of Sir Kay and Sir Ector were "the best human figures ever done at the studio."^{[citation needed]}
• The climactic battle between Merlin and Mad Madam Mim is often cited by animation experts as some of the best character animation to that date. The characters go through numerous physical transformations during battle, yet retain their identifying features; Merlin's guises are blue and include his glasses and a facial hair, while Mim's are pink and purple and have her messy hair.^{[citation needed]}
• Mim's pink and purple stripes are excatly like Disney version of Cheshire Cat.
• Some of the animation cells of Arthur walking through the dark forest to find Kay's arrow were later reused in a similar scene in The Black Cauldron in which Taran looks for Hen-Wen.
• When Sir Ector and Kay are in the kitchen fighting against the enchanted dishware, Sir Ector yells and swings his sword so hard that it hits Kay on the head; Jasper and Horace in One Hundred and One Dalmatians are animated in the same way during the fight scene with Pongo and Perdita. Additionally, the scene where Arthur is being licked by the castle dogs is mirrored by that of Mowgli being licked by his wolf friends in The Jungle Book four years later.
• The scene where Arthur is a squirrel jumping from one tree to the next was reused in The Fox and the Hound in 1981, where Todd is left behind in the forest searching for available shelter.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The R2 DVD release has a scene trimmed by the BBFC involving Mad Madame Mim's first encounter with Wart. In the current version she says, "Sounds like someone's sick, how lovely!" In the uncut version she continues, "I do hope it's serious, something dreadful!"
• This was the first animated feature scored by the Sherman Brothers.
• The Sword in the Stone is the only production in which Robert and Richard Reitherman appear. They were the sons of director Wolfgang Reitherman and brothers of Bruce Reitherman, the voice of Mowgli and Christopher Robin.
• Merlin appeared in the Square-Enix and Disney game Kingdom Hearts as a resident of Traverse Town, and later in Kingdom Hearts II, a resident of Hollow Bastion. His house in Kingdom Hearts II was used as a base where the security system of Hollow Bastion could be controlled.
• Arthur was voiced by three different boys - Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman and Robert Reitherman. The changes in voice are very noticeable in the film because of the way Arthur's voice keeps going from broken to unbroken, sometimes in the same scene. One of the easiest noticed is in the last scene in the thone room when Arthur asks in his "changed voice", "Oh, Archimedes, I wish Merlin was here!" Then, he sees Merlin fly in and shouts in his "unchanged voice," "Merlin! Merlin!"
• The rare germ that Merlin turns into to infect Madam Mim is called Malagolintomontorosis.
• Merlin was featured as one of the guests in House of Mouse.
• in the 1993 pont and click adventure game Simon the Sorceror, the batlle between Merlin and Madam Mim is parodied when Simon does battle with a wicked witch, imitating the dragon transformation sequence.

• Argentina: January 16, 1964
• Brazil: January 17, 1964
• Australia: April 15, 1964
• Hong Kong: May 28, 1964
• Japan: July 18, 1964
• Mexico: December 10, 1964
• Sweden: December 14, 1964
• France: December 16, 1964
• West Germany: December 17, 1964
• Italy: December 23, 1964
• Denmark: December 26, 1964
• Norway: December 26, 1964
• Austria: December 3, 1965
• Finland: December 17, 1965
• Spain: December 20, 1965
• Kuwait: November 15, 2003

This needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2006)

• List of films based on Arthurian legend

• The Sword in the Stone at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Disney theatrical animated features
Official canon	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) • Pinocchio (1940) • Fantasia (1940) • Dumbo (1941) • Bambi (1942) • Saludos Amigos (1942) • The Three Caballeros (1944) • Make Mine Music (1946) • Fun and Fancy Free (1947) • Melody Time (1948) • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) • Cinderella (1950) • Alice in Wonderland (1951) • Peter Pan (1953) • Lady and the Tramp (1955) • Sleeping Beauty (1959) • One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) • The Sword in the Stone (1963) • The Jungle Book (1967) • The Aristocats (1970) • Robin Hood (1973) • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) • The Rescuers (1977) • The Fox and the Hound (1981) • The Black Cauldron (1985) • The Great Mouse Detective (1986) • Oliver & Company (1988) • The Little Mermaid (1989) • The Rescuers Down Under (1990) • Beauty and the Beast (1991) • Aladdin (1992) • The Lion King (1994) • Pocahontas (1995) • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) • Hercules (1997) • Mulan (1998) • Tarzan (1999) • Fantasia 2000 (1999) • The Emperor's New Groove (2000) • Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) • Lilo & Stitch (2002) • Treasure Planet (2002) • Brother Bear (2003) • Home on the Range (2004) • Chicken Little (2005) • Meet the Robinsons (2007) • Bolt (2008) • The Princess and the Frog (2009) • Rapunzel (2010)
Live-action films with animation	The Reluctant Dragon (1941) • Victory Through Air Power (1943) • Song of the South (1946) • So Dear to My Heart (1949) • Mary Poppins (1964) • Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) • Pete's Dragon (1977) • Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) • Enchanted (2007)
DisneyToon features	DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) • A Goofy Movie (1995) • Doug's 1st Movie (1999) • The Tigger Movie (2000) • Recess: School's Out (2001) • Return to Never Land (2002) • The Jungle Book 2 (2003) • Piglet's Big Movie (2003) • Teacher's Pet (2004) • Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005)
Other	The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) • James and the Giant Peach (1996) • Dinosaur (2000) • A Christmas Carol (2009)
See also	Pixar • Walt Disney Animation Studios