In Defense of “The Sword in the Stone” (1963)

When I was growing up, we had a VHS tape that had two Disney films back-to-back recorded on it, The Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood, and these were two of my absolute favourite things to watch. Every time that we popped the tape into the VCR, I’d find myself caught up in the whimsy and humour that is such a hallmark of these two films in particular. These films were, of course, produced at a rather strange time in the history of Disney, for by 1963, when Sword was released, it must have seemed that the bloom might be off the rose a bit, and that was certainly the case when Robin Hood came out 10 years later in 1973.

Neither film was a disaster, and in fact both made a profit (though that for Robin Hood was smaller than for Sword). However, neither of them ever really managed to achieve the sorts of post-release accolades and recognition that they deserved, and it’s only in recent years that Robin Hood, in particular, has started to garner some well-deserved recognition from various commentators, many of whom comment in particular on the fact that the title character is awfully attractive for being an animated fox.

Somehow, however, The Sword in the Stone still gets left out in the cold, and that’s truly a shame. I was recently reading a review, and I was struck by the hostility that the writer — and the comments! — had toward the film…