Director: Terence Fisher
Year: 1960
Rating: 5.5
After Errol Flynn,
Richard Greene is probably the best known Robin Hood. That is primarily due
to his five year stint in a TV series playing Robin Hood. I remember watching
them as a child. It ran from 1955 to 1960 with 144 episodes (some are up on
Youtube). Hammer Studios took up the mantle after the final year of the series
and produced this film. It really feels like an extra long TV episode though
with an upgrade in the actors and perhaps more violence than the TV show.
It has a flaccid pace and just feels very ordinary. None of the usual Robin
and his men saving the crown or disrupting a plot to take away the liberties
of the people - not that they really had many liberties in 12th century England.
The Sheriff of Nottingham is up to his
usual nogoodnik plans - along with the Earl of Newark - who are conspiring
to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury for reasons I was never really sure of.
A wounded man is brought into the camp by Robin and before he dies he utters
only a location and the word danger. Robin is curious enough to look into
it. He also comes across the lovely maid Marian who just wanders around Sherwood
Forest looking for trouble. None of this is particularly exciting but there
are a few decent enough swordfights and other action scenes.
It is lifted up a bit by the cast. Playing
the dastardly Sheriff is the wonderful Peter Cushing who already had so many
great Hammer roles behind him - Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and Van Helsing
in two Dracula films. This feels like a step down after those roles. Also
on hand is a very rotten Oliver Reed, Nigel Greene as a good guy for a change
as Little John and finally the actor who plays Allan-A-Dale who sings a lovely
song at the beginning of the film. The name will likely mean nothing but back
in the 1950's Dennis Lotis was a very popular singer in England in the Easy
Listening style. Oh, and the wounded man who only has two lines of dialogue
- none other than Q - Desmond Llewelyn. Directing is another Hammer stalwart
- Terence Fisher - The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Horror of Dracula,
The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Brides of Dracula, The Gorgon and many
others - one of the best genre directors in the 1950s and 60s. He could have
done better here though!
