Mediaeval Britain gave the world two of its best-loved legends, one- that of King Arthur- being Celtic, aristocratic and courtly, the other- that of Robin Hood- being Saxon and demotic. When Sean Connery appeared as King Arthur in "First Knight" he achieved the rare distinction of having played the heroes of both legends on screen.
"Robin and Marian" was one of a number of period pieces made by director Richard Lester during the seventies; others include "The Three Musketeers" and "Royal Flash". The idea was to take a more "realistic" view of the Robin Hood legend than the romanticised version familiar from the well-known Errol Flynn film or the British television series starring Richard Greene. This version presents us with a middle-aged Robin who has spent the last twenty years fighting in the Crusades with King Richard the Lion-Heart. (In reality Richard's reign only lasted ten years). After Richard is killed while besieging a castle in France, Robin and his right-hand man Little John return to England where they are reunited with his "merry men" in Sherwood Forest, where they spearhead a rebellion against King John, the tyrannical new ruler of England. Robin is also reunited with his former lover Maid Marian who has become a nun (indeed, a Mother Superior) in his absence. Her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, however, do not prevent Marian from abandoning her religious vocation and rushing back into Robin's arms.
The main part of Audrey Hepburn's film career ended with "Wait until Dark" in 1967, following which she was absent from the screen for nine years, an absence caused by events in her private life. She made occasional attempts at a comeback in the late seventies and eighties, but none of these were particularly successful. "Robin and Marian" strikes me as being an unsuitable vehicle for her first comeback after her nine-year absence, because she is in many ways quite wrong for the part. The grizzled, balding Connery does indeed look convincingly middle-aged- older, indeed, than his real age of forty-six. Hepburn was actually a year older than Connery, but here looks far younger than her real age of forty-seven, making it seem that Marian is not Robin's contemporary but a woman nearly young enough to be his daughter.
Moreover, any sense that Robin is an ageing man whose powers are in decline is lost as soon as he and Little John manage to escape from Nottingham Castle by scaling the walls, a feat of athletic derring-do as remarkable as anything performed by Flynn or Greene in their versions of the story and which in real life would probably have been beyond the powers even of an Olympic athlete. This is not, however, the first improbability in the story. The tone is set with the death of King Richard. The arrow which kills him is thrown by hand by a one-eyed old man, but nevertheless has enough force to penetrate his armour and cause a fatal wound. (In reality the arrow was fired from a bow in the normal manner and killed Richard because he was not wearing armour at the time).
Then we have the scene where a group of nuns are supposedly being held prisoner in a castle but are allowed to wander freely about the courtyard and escape by running out of the main entrance before the guards can lower the portcullis. (Didn't the Sheriff of Nottingham realise what a dungeon is for?) In the final showdown between Robin and his enemies, Robin unaccountably leads his followers out of Sherwood Forest, even though their archery skills out them at an advantage over mounted knights in the dense woodland. Robin then challenges the Sheriff to single combat, which he equally unaccountably accepts even though his numerically superior forces would have the advantage in open fields. Finally, Marian brings the proceedings to an end by inexplicably poisoning both Robin and herself. (If Robin's wounds had been fatal her motivation might have been understandable, but there is no evidence that this is the case).
The film reunites Connery with Richard Harris, with whom he had acted in "The Molly Maguires", but this is not a film in the same class as that one. Harris gives an eccentric performance as King Richard, playing him as a cruel, ranting and almost comically capricious tyrant, which made me wonder just why Robin and Little John had served him loyally for so long and just what was so bad about King John that he was regarded as a change for the worse.
None of the acting performances, in fact, really stand out. Connery is probably the best. It may seem odd to have Robin Hood speaking in a Scottish accent, as indeed does Little John, Nicol Williamson also being a Scot. The English spoken in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, would have been something halfway between Anglo-Saxon and Chaucerian Middle English, very different to the modern language, so it would have been a bogus form of authenticity to try and make Robin speak like a modern East Midlander.
The love scenes between Robin and Marian are done well enough to suggest a genuine passion between them, although the film does not explore in any depth the potential conflict between Marian's love for Robin and her love for God. Overall, however, I felt that the film contained too many eccentricities and implausibilities to be taken seriously. It cannot compare with the Errol Flynn version. 4/10
"Robin and Marian" was one of a number of period pieces made by director Richard Lester during the seventies; others include "The Three Musketeers" and "Royal Flash". The idea was to take a more "realistic" view of the Robin Hood legend than the romanticised version familiar from the well-known Errol Flynn film or the British television series starring Richard Greene. This version presents us with a middle-aged Robin who has spent the last twenty years fighting in the Crusades with King Richard the Lion-Heart. (In reality Richard's reign only lasted ten years). After Richard is killed while besieging a castle in France, Robin and his right-hand man Little John return to England where they are reunited with his "merry men" in Sherwood Forest, where they spearhead a rebellion against King John, the tyrannical new ruler of England. Robin is also reunited with his former lover Maid Marian who has become a nun (indeed, a Mother Superior) in his absence. Her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, however, do not prevent Marian from abandoning her religious vocation and rushing back into Robin's arms.
The main part of Audrey Hepburn's film career ended with "Wait until Dark" in 1967, following which she was absent from the screen for nine years, an absence caused by events in her private life. She made occasional attempts at a comeback in the late seventies and eighties, but none of these were particularly successful. "Robin and Marian" strikes me as being an unsuitable vehicle for her first comeback after her nine-year absence, because she is in many ways quite wrong for the part. The grizzled, balding Connery does indeed look convincingly middle-aged- older, indeed, than his real age of forty-six. Hepburn was actually a year older than Connery, but here looks far younger than her real age of forty-seven, making it seem that Marian is not Robin's contemporary but a woman nearly young enough to be his daughter.
Moreover, any sense that Robin is an ageing man whose powers are in decline is lost as soon as he and Little John manage to escape from Nottingham Castle by scaling the walls, a feat of athletic derring-do as remarkable as anything performed by Flynn or Greene in their versions of the story and which in real life would probably have been beyond the powers even of an Olympic athlete. This is not, however, the first improbability in the story. The tone is set with the death of King Richard. The arrow which kills him is thrown by hand by a one-eyed old man, but nevertheless has enough force to penetrate his armour and cause a fatal wound. (In reality the arrow was fired from a bow in the normal manner and killed Richard because he was not wearing armour at the time).
Then we have the scene where a group of nuns are supposedly being held prisoner in a castle but are allowed to wander freely about the courtyard and escape by running out of the main entrance before the guards can lower the portcullis. (Didn't the Sheriff of Nottingham realise what a dungeon is for?) In the final showdown between Robin and his enemies, Robin unaccountably leads his followers out of Sherwood Forest, even though their archery skills out them at an advantage over mounted knights in the dense woodland. Robin then challenges the Sheriff to single combat, which he equally unaccountably accepts even though his numerically superior forces would have the advantage in open fields. Finally, Marian brings the proceedings to an end by inexplicably poisoning both Robin and herself. (If Robin's wounds had been fatal her motivation might have been understandable, but there is no evidence that this is the case).
The film reunites Connery with Richard Harris, with whom he had acted in "The Molly Maguires", but this is not a film in the same class as that one. Harris gives an eccentric performance as King Richard, playing him as a cruel, ranting and almost comically capricious tyrant, which made me wonder just why Robin and Little John had served him loyally for so long and just what was so bad about King John that he was regarded as a change for the worse.
None of the acting performances, in fact, really stand out. Connery is probably the best. It may seem odd to have Robin Hood speaking in a Scottish accent, as indeed does Little John, Nicol Williamson also being a Scot. The English spoken in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, would have been something halfway between Anglo-Saxon and Chaucerian Middle English, very different to the modern language, so it would have been a bogus form of authenticity to try and make Robin speak like a modern East Midlander.
The love scenes between Robin and Marian are done well enough to suggest a genuine passion between them, although the film does not explore in any depth the potential conflict between Marian's love for Robin and her love for God. Overall, however, I felt that the film contained too many eccentricities and implausibilities to be taken seriously. It cannot compare with the Errol Flynn version. 4/10