Robin Hood at the Movies: 08 “The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men”, (1952).

 

The story begins with Robin and Lady Marian frolicking in the forest. Marian is the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon. The Earl is leaving for the Crusades with King Richard, and leaves Marian in the Queen mother’s care. King Richard leaves the throne in the temporary care of his brother Prince John, who in turn appoints a new Sheriff of Nottingham, with instructions to form a new ruthless “army” to collect his taxes. An archery competition for a golden arrow is set up to select the best men for this job.

Robin wins the Golden Arrow, albeit on a technicality, and gifts it to Lady Marian. He also refuses to join Prince John’s army of tax collectors, so Prince John hires archer Red Gill to assassinate him. Gill’s arrow kills Robin’s friend, Robin kills Gill in return, and so the legendary story of meeting and enlisting Little John, Friar Tuck, Stutely and Scathelock, begins.

Meanwhile, King Richard is imprisoned in Austria. The Queen mother tries to raise the ransom money, but Prince John will not help, blaming the outlaws in Sherwood Forest for loss of funds. Disguised as a boy, Marian persuades Alan A Dale to stop singing for a few minutes and take her to meet Robin Hood. She is soon persuaded Robin is loyal to King Richard, and plans to take the outlaws’ contribution to the king’s ransom to Nottingham Market, where the Sheriff is forced to add his own money to the pile.

The film’s final chapters see the Sheriff imprisoning Lady Marian, disguising his soldiers as outlaws to retrieve his money, engaging in a swordfight with Robin, and meeting a grisly end. A stranger comes to town (you’ve guessed who), with the authority to make Robin the Earl of Loxley and marry him to Marian.

Made by Disney, with family entertainment in mind, it’s one of the better Robin Hood movies, although the Alan A Dale ballads illustrating parts of the story do become tiresome. The assassin Red Gill (Archie Duncan) will be more familiar to fans as Little John in later years. Lady Marian (Joan Rice) introduces the idea of her being something of a “tom boy”; shades of Patricia Driscoll in the 1950s TV series, or Uma Thurman in 1991’s “Robin Hood”.