Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman; Screenplay by Bill Peet, based on T.H. White's novel; Featuring the voices of Rickie Sorensen (the Wart), Norman Alden (Kay), Sebastian Cabot (Sir Ector), Junius Matthews (Archimedes), and Karl Swenson (Merlyn).
The combination of Wolfgang Reitherman (who served as animation director for Disney's Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan) and Bill Peet (who wrote the screenplays of 101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, and Cinderella) give their animated version of The Sword in the Stone the unmistakable Disney stamp. The film features songs, adventures in the woods, and a doe-eyed hero who (like Cinderella and Dumbo) overcomes adversity to prove triumphant at the film's end. While White's novel is presented in a much-simplified form, the film ultimately serves as a good introduction to its central issue — the value of education.
The familiar characters from White's novel all appear in this film, albeit in simplified versions in which their primary traits are exaggerated. The Wart is a feckless and scrawny twelve-year-old boy who maintains the same innocence that marked him in White's novel. Merlin, although still the Wart's tutor, is more bumbling and close to the cliched version of a wizard, casting spells that sound like gibberish ("Hockety Pockety Wockety Wack, / Abara Dabara Cabara Dack!") and getting his beard caught wherever it lands. Archimedes (Merlyn's owl) is a caricature of a know-it-all schoolmaster, constantly annoyed at his master and saying things like, "Pinfeathers!" The greatest departure in character lies in Sir Ector and Kay, who in this version resemble Cinderella's wicked stepsisters more than the two gruff (but ultimately good) figures that comprise Wart's adopted family in the novel. (The fact that they both have red hair while the Wart's is blonde stresses their difference in character from the kindhearted boy.) Much of what motivates the Wart, in fact, is proving his worth to these two overbearing figures. (The entire Robin Wood episode does not appear in the film, most likely so that Reitherman could keep its plot simple enough to grab young viewers.)
