One of my unofficial New Year’s resolutions this year was to try and declutter, perhaps actually get rid of some of my huge DVD collection. It’s not always that easy though. Mooching around one of those cheap secondhand shops recently I picked up yet another DVD. I’ll tell you about it in more detail later but it was one of the many films made about Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
My first introduction to Robin Hood was a book I was given for Christmas as a child. There were two parts to it; one was the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the second part was about Robin Hood. I don’t have the book anymore and I have no idea who wrote it but I always look for it when I happen to come across a good secondhand book shop. If I ever found it, it would give me a great thrill to read that book again because I have loved the stories of King Arthur and Robin, ever since.
That unknown book had all the elements of the Robin Hood story we have come to know and love. There was Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, the Sheriff of Nottingham and much more.
The first time I saw Robin Hood on TV was the TV series starring Richard Greene as Robin. There were four series of the TV show which was first produced in 1955. I must have seen repeats shown in the 1960’s but just like that book, all the elements of the Robin Hood story were there and in particular there was a really catchy theme tune and song which even now I can still remember:
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Riding through the glen.
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
With his band of men.
Feared by the bad, loved by the good,
Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!
Yes, they just don’t write them like that anymore.
So who is Robin Hood some of you may be asking? He is a character in old English folklore who was an outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. He was a renowned archer and he and his men wore Lincoln Green outfits and lived in Sherwood Forest. In some stories he is of noble birth, in others he is not. In some Robin has served in the Crusades with Richard the Lionheart although many of the stories show Robin at odds with Prince John, the King’s brother, who plans to usurp the King who is away on the Crusades.
According to Wikipedia the first known reference to Robin Hood comes from a ballad from the 1370’s.
In the silent film days Hollywood brought Robin Hood to the screen starring Douglas Fairbanks Junior as the legendary hero.
The film was released in 1922 and was the first film to ever have a Hollywood première. It featured huge sets including a castle and an entire town built at the Fairbank’s studio on Santa Monica Boulevard made to look even bigger on screen with hanging models and matte paintings.
There is also a famous scene where Fairbanks, who did many of his own stunts, rode down a huge curtain at Nottingham castle, made slightly easier with a slide concealed behind the curtain.
Probably the best ever Robin Hood film is the one I mentioned earlier which I picked up on DVD at a charity shop. The Adventures of Robin Hood starred Errol Flynn as Robin, and Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian. The film differs from many other portrayals of the Robin Hood story in that the main villain of the film is Sir Guy of Gisborne rather than the Sheriff of Nottingham. Basil Rathbone played Guy and the Sheriff is portrayed as something of a comic figure by Melville Cooper.
Incredibly, James Cagney was supposed to play Robin but he had a major disagreement with Warner Brothers and walked off the lot, not making another film for two years. The studio turned instead to their new star, Errol Flynn. He had shot to stardom in the Film Captain Blood and shortly before production began the studio decided to film the project in their new Technicolor process.
A lot of the film was shot in California’s Bidwell Park which substituted for Sherwood Forest with some scenes shot at the Warner Ranch in Calabasas.
The film had two directors, William Keighley and latterly, Michael Curtiz who was asked to take over when the producer, Hal B Wallis, became dissatisfied with Keighley. Curtiz made a number of films with Flynn including The Charge of the Light Brigade in which Flynn and co-star David Niven fell about laughing when Curtiz called for a horde of riderless horses to enter the scene. Curtiz yelled ‘bring on the empty horses’ which Niven later used as the title of his famous book about Hollywood.
The film picks up on all the elements of the Robin Hood legends, including Friar Tuck and the meeting with Little John. The highlight of the film comes towards the end when Robin and Sir Guy battle it out in an outstanding display of swordsmanship including a famous scene where the two move off camera and we see their shadows dancing along the castle walls.
The Adventures of Robin Hood was a wonderful film and probably the best film ever made about the hero of Sherwood Forest but there are a few other entertaining Robin Hoods.
In 1991 Kevin Costner appeared in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In this film Costner, as the noble Robin of Loxley, returns from the crusades to find that his father has been hung and his home laid to ruin by the Sheriff of Nottingham, played in a villainous but camp way by Alan Rickman, whose performance was universally praised. Robin was accompanied by Azeem, a Muslim who feels he has to repay Robin for saving his life. Costner as Robin, did not attempt to lose his American accent and although the film had mixed reviews, I personally have always enjoyed it.
The film featured the hit single Everything I Do, I Do it For You sung by Bryan Adams and also had a small cameo with Sean Connery playing King John. The exteriors were shot in the UK and one particular location was at Sycamore Gap, just by Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. The tree used in the sequence became known as the Robin Hood tree which featured in the news in 2023 when it was cut down by vandals.
A 2010 film version of Robin Hood was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Russell Crowe as Robin. Simply called Robin Hood, this film had a slightly different storyline with Crowe’s character masquerading as Robin of Loxley and was more serious in tone than the Flynn or Costner versions. During the crusades Robin Longstride comforts a dying Knight. Sir Robin Loxley asks him to return his sword to his father in England which he does. Loxley’s father asks him to continue to impersonate Robin to prevent the new King John seizing his lands. Cate Blanchett played the part of Marian and of course Robin soon brings his band of Merry Men together to fight the evil King John.
Perhaps I should also mention the Walt Disney animated version of Robin Hood that was released in 1973. The story is narrated by Alan-a-Dale who tells the story of Robin who as usual, robs from the rich to help the poor. The characters are all animals so Robin becomes a fox, Maid Marian a vixen, Little John is a bear and of course Richard the Lion Heart is a lion. The film was the first animated feature for the Disney Studios following the death of Walt Disney.
I should also mention that a few years ago I actually met Robin Hood. Well, the actor who played Robin in the 2006 BBC series, Jonas Armstrong who now lives in Lytham on the Fylde coast. I met him in the Victoria Hotel in St Annes.
All the films I have mentioned here recreate or at least try to recreate the legend of Robin Hood. All the original stories of folklore and legend are incorporated in the many Robin Hood films, from Robin and Little John meeting, to Robin’s love affair with Maid Marian. One story though that I still remember from that long lost Robin Hood book I used to have is one that I’ve never seen used in any Robin Hood film and it’s this. At the very end of Robin’s life, he is dying and he fires his bow and arrow one last time, asking to be buried wherever the arrow lands. He pulls back the bow and fires his last arrow which I’ve always thought was a fitting finale to the story of Robin Hood.
There are probably more films I could mention, Robin and Marian for instance starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as an aging Robin and Marian but I think that’s enough Robin Hood for now. Time for a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. Wonder what’s on the TV this afternoon?
As a great believer in synchronicity, I really wasn’t surprised to see a repeat of Robin of Sherwood, the 1980s TV series!
Back in the 1970s my Saturday ritual involved getting the bus into town and scouring book and record shops for, yes, you’ve guessed it, books and records. One day back then I was flipping through the posters in one particular shop. The posters were the music stars of the 70s; Elton John, Mick Jagger, Suzi Quatro, David Bowie and so on but one was a picture of a really good looking guy with a fifties combed back hair style. In some pictures he was dressed like a cowboy and in others in a red jacket and denim jeans. The guy behind the counter must have seen me wondering who the guy was and he told me he was a film star called James Dean. He handed me a paperback book about the actor and I took it home and read it and very soon I was trying to find out everything I could about him.
The paperback book I bought that day in the record shop in the 1970’s was probably James Dean: A Short Life by Venable Herndon. It wasn’t a great book but an interesting introduction to Dean and who he was. It detailed his struggle for acting roles, TV work in New York, his apartment at 19 West Sixty-Eighth Street, his three films, his doomed affair with Pier Angeli and of course his death.
Another book I picked up only recently was another picture album James Dean: Portrait of Cool edited by Leith Adams and Keith Burns. It’s an album of photographs found in the Warner Bros archive and some have not been published before. Included are all sorts of documents such as casting sheets, production notes and messages. Dean’s address is listed as 3908 West Olive Avenue which I think might have been a place he shared with Dick Davalos who played his brother in East of Eden. During Rebel Without a Cause, Dean was listed as living at 1541 Sunset Plaza Drive.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
I’m not sure which came first for me, the book or the film but I actually think it was the book. The Godfather was written by Mario Puzo and is the story of Don Vito Corleone, the head of one of the five mafia families of New York. The book opens with the wedding of Don Corleone’s daughter and Puzo sets the scene and introduces the various characters.
Francis Ford Coppola was the director of the film version and was also the co-writer of the screenplay along with Mario Puzo. Coppola wanted Marlon Brando to play the part of Don Corleone even though Brando at the time was rather unpopular with the producers. He was expensive, his last few films had not done well and his time wasting attitude had added huge expenses to his pictures. After the director had made the producers understand how important Brando was, they set various conditions for his employment. He would have to work for a reduced salary and put up a bond to ensure he would not delay the production. Another was that he had to have a screen test. Coppola has told the story in various interviews how he and his film crew had entered Brando’s house like ninjas and quietly set up their equipment. Brando slicked down his hair with shoe polish and stuffed cotton balls into his mouth to make the transformation into the aging mafia boss.
Coppola decided that instead of finding the horse at the end of his bed like in the book, it would be better if Woltz awoke, was disturbed by something wet, pulls the bedclothes away to see blood and then uncovers the horse’s head. The head was the actual head of a horse, procured from a dog meat factory and Coppola mentions on the commentary to my DVD version that lots of animal lovers sent him hate mail about the horse, even though the horse had been condemned to its fate anyway.
As previously mentioned, the book does have some storylines which were not used in the film but one chapter was a look at the beginnings of Vito Corleone. Born Vito Andolini in the Sicilian village of Corleone, Vito’s father was murdered by a local mafia boss and the young Vito was smuggled away to America. In America he took the name of Corleone and seemed to slip quietly into the role of mafia Don by murdering Fanucci, a New York Sicilian Godfather who preyed on his fellow Italians. Although this element of the story wasn’t used, Coppola kept the storyline for use in The Godfather Part II. The follow up film was a film classic in its own way.
Ida Lupino, like Roddy MacDowell, was born in England, in fact both lived in the Herne Hill area of London. She wanted to be a writer rather than an actress but went into acting as she was part of a theatrical family and it seems that becoming an actor was expected of her. She appeared in many British films before moving to the USA in 1933.
Myrna studied dance in Los Angeles. She had small parts in many silent pictures but some stills of her appeared in Motion Picture magazine and led to a contract with Warner Bros.
What attracted me to the persona of Marilyn Monroe? Well, apart from her obvious charms as a very attractive lady it’s her death that has always interested me. I’m a sucker for a modern mystery whether it’s the assassination of JFK, the disappearance of Amelia Aerhart or Marilyn’s own strange death. The obvious solution is that Marilyn committed suicide. She had tried suicide quite a few times before and various people along the years have saved her from death, including her acting coach Natasha Lytess and her third husband playwright Arthur Miller. Suicide is the obvious answer to her death but personally, I’m not so sure.
Norman Mailer’s book about Monroe finished with a photo of Joe DiMaggio, grief stricken on the day of her funeral and he reckons we can perhaps surmise Marilyn’s true worth just by the look on Joe’s face that day. I cannot disagree.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 