Trailer
Plot summary
King Uther Pendragon dies without an heir, and a sword appears in an anvil atop a stone in London, inscribed with the promise that whoever draws it will rule. No hand can move it, and the sword is forgotten. Years on, a twelve-year-old orphan called Wart lives in the castle of Sir Ector with his foster brother Kay. Chasing a lost arrow in the woods, Wart meets Merlin, an elderly wizard with a talking owl, Archimedes, who declares himself the boy's tutor and moves into the castle. Word arrives from London that a New Year's Day tournament will crown its winner, so Ector enters Kay and makes Wart his squire. Merlin begins the boy's lessons, turning them both into fish in the castle moat.
Cast
- Richard Reithermanas Wart (voice)
- Robert Reithermanas Wart (voice)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Rickie Sorensen, cast as Arthur, entered puberty during the film's production, which forced director Wolfgang Reitherman to cast two of his own sons, Richard and Robert, to replace him. Arthur's voice noticeably changes between scenes, and sometimes within the same scene.
- Disney nearly made Chanticleer instead. After a silent response to one pitch, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!", and when the time came to choose, Disney said the problem with a rooster protagonist was that "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it".
- Reitherman estimated that 70 actors read for the part of Merlin, but none of them had the eccentricity he was looking for. Karl Swenson initially read for Archimedes, and was cast as Merlin instead.
