diff -r 26756d9d8143 -r d947e1da1259 mercurial/cmdutil.py
--- a/mercurial/cmdutil.py	Sun May 13 11:47:55 2012 +0200
+++ b/mercurial/cmdutil.py	Sun May 13 12:52:24 2012 +0200
@@ -910,7 +910,10 @@
     if not (tmpl or style):
         tmpl = ui.config('ui', 'logtemplate')
         if tmpl:
-            tmpl = templater.parsestring(tmpl)
+            try:
+                tmpl = templater.parsestring(tmpl)
+            except SyntaxError:
+                tmpl = templater.parsestring(tmpl, quoted=False)
         else:
             style = util.expandpath(ui.config('ui', 'style', ''))