Under the Hood

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Sherwood Forest, they foist yet another "Robin Hood" upon you. This year's "hip" version, starring Taron Egerton (best known as bespectacled "Eggsy" in the "Kingsman" movies) in the title role, with Jamie Foxx as his Moorish sidekick (wait a minute, haven't we been here before?), promises to be "a thrilling action adventure packed with gritty battlefield exploits, mind-blowing fight choreography, and a timeless romance." At least that's what the hype-sters promise.

It doesn't seem that long ago, but it has been over eight and a half years since director Ridley Scott's grimy, bloody take on the origins of the oft-filmed bandit of Nottinghamshire in 2010's "Robin Hood," with Russell Crowe. And it was 19 years before that, in 1991, when the mishmash of historical anachronisms, wandering dialects, and continuity snafus called "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," starring Kevin Costner, was in theaters. Also in 1991, the TV movie "Robin Hood," featuring Irish actor Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman, gave the legend a realistic, mud-and-blood makeover. Then, in 1993, Mel Brooks sent up all things Sherwood in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

So, in less than 30 years, we have seen five Robin Hood pictures. To quote Roger Ebert, "Not bad for a man who, by general agreement, did not exist." Robin Hood became a popular folk hero in the Late Middle Ages. The earliest known ballads about him are from the 1400s. The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is 15th-century "Robin Hood and the Monk."

The first printed version of a ballad is "A Gest of Robyn Hode," ca. 1500 (pictured above). In 1598, Anthony Munday wrote two plays based on the Robin Hood legend. Shakespeare mentioned Robin Hood in two plays, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," written between 1589 and 1593, and "As You Like It," written in 1599.

The earliest ballads featured such lasting characters as Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Much the Miller's Son. Maid Marian originated as a shepherdess associated with the May Day celebrations. Possibly a personification of the Virgin Mary, she started appearing in tales about Robin Hood in the 16th century. Minstrel Alan-a-Dale was first mentioned in a 17th century ballad.

This illustration of Robin Hood
was done around 1500.

Over time, Robin Hood was cast as a defender of the late-12th century monarch, King Richard the Lionheart. Robin Hood was forced into the outlaw life, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, during the misrule of Richard's brother, Prince John, while Richard was overseas fighting in the Third Crusade. Although such tales first gained popularity in the 16th century, they were missing from the earliest ballads.

Roger Ebert noted, "Although various obscure bandits and ne'er-do-wells inspired ancient ballads about such a figure, our image of him is largely a fiction from the 19th century." In 1819, the first novel about Robin Hood, Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time, was published anonymously, but the enduring work of literature that propagated the modern image of Robin Hood and the denizens of Sherwood Forest was The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle in 1883 (pictured below). Pyle masterfully preserved the spirit of the old ballads while adapting them to a children's book which would influence writers, artists, and filmmakers for the next 200 years.

In 1917, N.C. Wyeth, a student of Howard Pyle, illustrated the book Robin Hood (pictured below).

Despite being revered as a beloved figure in British lore, Richard the Lionheart only spent six months in England during his decade-long reign. He did not speak English but rather at least two French dialects. After his death at age 41 in 1199, his remains were interred at the Abbey of Fontevraud in western France (pictured below).

As for the fictional depiction of Prince John as Richard's scheming antagonist and the enemy of Robin Hood, the Lionheart himself named John as his heir to the throne on his deathbed, instead of their nephew, Arthur I, Duke of Britany, who was the anticipated successor.

In 1953, during the Red Scare of the McCarthy era, Republican members of Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of Robin Hood from school books for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, which promoted Communism. Except for that minor setback, the legend of Robin Hood has endured in folklore, fiction, and film.

Robin Hood was featured in six silent films, at least 25 feature motion pictures, at least a half dozen television series, and seven non-Robin Hood pictures which were about Ivanhoe, the Saxon knight created by Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, who wrote Robin Hood in as a central character in his book Ivanhoe. Besides American and British productions, Robin Hood has been featured in films made in Italy, Germany, France, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the Philippines. There have been animated Robin Hoods, sons and daughters of Robin Hood, modern descendants of Robin Hood, futuristic Robins in space, Robin Hood as a 1930's gangster ("Robin and the 7 Hoods"), even a zombified Robin.

The first screen appearance of Robin Hood was in a 1908 British silent film titled "Robin Hood and His Merry Men." The full, copyrighted title for a 1922 silent picture was "Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood." The movie was produced and scripted by star Douglas Fairbanks (pictured below), the swashbuckling lead in "The Mark of Zorro," "The Three Musketeers," and "The Thief of Bagdad," and was distributed by United Artists, the production company formed in 1919 by Fairbanks, future wife Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith. Fairbanks' "Robin Hood" was the first motion picture to have a Hollywood Premiere, at the majestic Grauman's Egyptian Theatre.

The quintessential swashbuckler of the early sound era, Tasmania-born Errol Flynn starred in the lavish 1938 production "The Adventures of Robin Hood," arguably the best of the Robin Hood movies.

"The Adventures of Robin Hood" was the third of eight screen
pairings of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Audiences assumed
the two were romantically involved, if not married. (Incidentally,
last July, de Havilland celebrated her 102nd birthday.)

Robin Hood's sidekick, the burly, exuberant Little John, was portrayed by Alan Hale, who played the same role alongside Douglas Fairbanks in 1922's "Robin Hood." In 1950's "Rogues of Sherwood Forest," starring John Derek (future husband of Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo Derek) as the son of Robin Hood, Hale reprised yet again his role as Little John.

Alan Hale, seen here dueling with Robin Hood, also
portrayed Musketeer Porthos in 1939's "The Man in
the Iron Mask." Forty years later, Hale's lookalike
son, Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper on "Gilligan's Island"),
played Porthos in 1979's "The Fifth Musketeer."

The British TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1955-1959), starring Richard Greene, was so popular that episodes were re-edited for three theatrical releases. Independent from the series, Greene starred in the 1960 Hammer Film Productions picture "Sword of Sherwood Forest," with Peter Cushing (best known as Grand Moff Tarkin in the first "Star Wars" picture) as the conniving Sheriff of Nottingham and Oliver Reed as a conspiring nobleman.

Richard Greene poses in a publicity shot with
Patricial Driscoll as Maid Marian.

Released in 1973, "Robin Hood" was the last feature film Walt Disney's venerable core of animators known as the Nine Old Men lived to see completed. The movie used anthropomorphic animals for the characters: Robin Hood was a fox, Maid Marian a vixen, while Prince John and King Richard were lions. British stage and film actor Brian Bedford provided the voice for Robin Hood, and Marian was voiced by London-born Monica Evans, best known as Cecily of the Pigeon sisters from "The Odd Couple," a role she played, along with Carole Shelley as Gwendolyn Pigeon, on Broadway, in the motion picture, and on "The Odd Couple" series. Sir Peter Ustinov performed the voice for both Prince John and King Richard.

Any resemblance between the ursine Little John in "Robin Hood"
and Baloo the sloth bear in Disney's "The Jungle Book" is no
coincidence, since both characters were similarly voiced by
night club comedian and jazz drummer Phil Harris.

In 1976's "Robin and Marian," director Richard Lester, on the heels of his raucous revitalization of Alexandre Dumas' literary swashbucklers in 1973's "The Three Musketeers" and 1974's "The Four Musketeers," presented an elegiac depiction of the reunion of an aging Robin Hood, returning from the failed Third Crusade, and Marian, now an abbess. The chemistry between Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in the title roles is palpable. Roger Ebert noted that the two stars "seem to have arrived at a tacit understanding between themselves about their characters. They glow. They really do seem in love. And they project as marvelously complex, fond, tender people; the passage of 20 years has given them grace and wisdom."

After finally defeating, in hand-to-hand combat, his lifelong nemesis,
the Sheriff of Nottingham (a sly performance by a wily Robert Shaw),
Robin is helped off the battlefield by Marian and his right-hand man,
Little John (Nicol Williamson).

The nostalgically bittersweet screenplay was written by James Goldman, the playwright who created the smart and savvy drama "The Lion in Winter" and adapted it for the 1968 film starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn. Both works by Goldman deftly explore the mortal dilemma of confronting one's own mortality.

Sean Connery's son, Jason Connery, portrayed Robert Huntingdon, Robin Hood incarnate, in the third and final season of the 1984-1986 British television series "Robin of Sherwood," a program noteworthy for its haunting score, provided by the Irish-Celtic band Clannad, featuring singer Máire Brennan, older sister of best-selling New Age recording artist Enya.

Jason flashes that cunning Connery smirk
alongside Judi Trott as Lady Marion of
Leaford in "Robin of Sherwood."

Regarding co-producer and star Kevin Costner's 1991 take on the legendary woodsman, "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," Los Angeles Times arts reporter David Ng noted that when the film opened, "critics laid waste to the Hollywood adventure epic, lambasting the movie's interminable running time, faux medieval dialogue and star Kevin Costner's meandering accent." Roger Ebert called the mess "a murky, unfocused...and depressing version of the classic story, with little of the lightheartedness and romance we expect from Robin Hood."

As Robin Hood's companion, Azeem (Morgan Freeman), a Moor,
provides the story with its most glaring anachronisms, including
a refracting telescope (not invented until over 400 years later),
gunpowder (unknown to the Arabs until a century down the road),
and we have our doubts about that industrial-sized scimitar.

See? I told you we've been down this road before. Jamie Foxx plays
Robin's companion, a Moor named Yahya, soon to become Little
John, in 2018's "Robin Hood."

"Amid the pans," the Los Angeles Times' David Ng wrote, "reviewers singled out British actor Alan Rickman for his comic take on the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham. He stole scenes with his zany mugging and sarcastic eye-rolling." Roger Ebert agreed, remarking, "The most colorful character is the villain...but both the character and the performance are inappropriate for this film...He's a wicked, droll, sly, witty master of the put-down and one-liner...Rickman's performance has nothing to do with anything else in the picture...but at least when Rickman appears on the screen we perk up, because we know we'll be entertained..."

On a roll playing villains (German terrorist Hans Gruber in "Die Hard," Australian rancher Elliot Marston in "Quigley Down Under"), Alan Rickman, who thought the "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" script was terrible, accepted the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham only when he was given free rein over his interpretation, which included the memorable ad lib, "And call off Christmas!" Rickman rewrote his dialogue with comedic actress and "Absolutely Fabulous" script editor Ruby Wax and "The Ruling Class" playwright Peter Barnes.

As if in response to "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," Mel Brooks, the king of spoofs, fired back with 1993's "Robin Hood: Men in Tights," starring Cary Elwes, with Amy Yasbeck (best known as John Ritter's wife/ex-wife in the "Problem Child" comedies of the early '90s) as Marian, comedian Richard Lewis as Prince John, Roger Rees (familiar to fans of TV's "Cheers" as British multi-millionaire Robin Colcord) as the Sheriff of Rottingham, Patrick Stewart as King Richard, and comedian Dave Chappelle as Ahchoo (a shot at Morgan Freeman's Azeem).

In a direct slam of Kevin Costner's performance, London-born
Cary Elwes reminded audiences, "Unlike some other Robin Hoods,
I can speak with an English accent."

Ridley Scott, the director of 2010's Robin Hood," starring Russell Crowe, with Cate Blanchett as Marian Locksley, admitted the only previous Robin Hood picture he thought was any good was "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." Russell Crowe, like Kevin Costner before him, had difficulty maintaining an English accent. He reportedly stormed out of a BBC radio interview when questioned about his accent. On a $200 million budget, the picture grossed under $322 million, which is disappointing in the movie business. Plans for a sequel were jettisoned based on the film's poor box-office performance.

At 45, Russell Crowe, seen here with Cate Blanchett, is the oldest
actor to portray Robin Hood.

Postscript: A Machine Stitch in Time

Remember how the female reboot of "Ghostbusters" tanked even before it got to the theaters because nobody liked the trailers on YouTube? A similar fate may await the new take on "Robin Hood," featuring Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx as a "war-hardened Crusader and his Moorish commander," judging by a flood of criticism on Twitter in the wake of first teasers of the picture.

The funniest tweets concern the new movie's unmistakably odd wardrobe. "Nothing says Robin Hood like a machine-stitched hoodie," someone tweeted, echoed by, "What in the world?...Fully machine stitched...They didn't even try to fake hand sewn. The new Robin Hood Line, coming to a Gap near you," and, "Taron Egerton wearing a jacket that looks like something you'd buy from Superdry." Another asked, "Did I hallucinate that they were wearing suit jackets?" while yet one more pondered, "Why is Robin Hood wearing a 21st century jacket? F*** me, this is going to be hilariously bad, I'm very excited."

You decide: Which one is from the Superdry catalog and
which one is from the new "Robin Hood" movie?

One tweet summed the whole mess up: "Hey guys, let's NEVER get Robin Hood right."


Post-Postscript: Ben Who?

We couldn't depart Sherwood Forest without mention of a low-budget quickie titled "Robin Hood The Rebellion," hurriedly released two weeks before the big-time production in hopes of cashing in on that film's buzz. British soap opera actor Ben Freeman portrays Robin, with Marie Everett as Marian.

"The Rebellion" toplines Martyn Ford, a 6' 8" cricket-player-turned bodybuilder, as a character appropriately called Brimstone and Brian Blessed as Friar Tuck.

Martyn Ford poses for an off-camera snapshot with
castmate Adrian Dimberline.

Distinguished Yorkshire-born actor Brian Blessed became a familiar, imposing presence in four of actor-director Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films: "Henry V," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Hamlet," and "As You Like It."

Brian Blessed stole more than his share of scenes as the King's
uncle, Duke of Exeter, in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V."

Blessed is also fondly recalled for his role as Prince Vultan, the boisterous lord over the Hawkmen in 1980's "Flash Gordon." On a 2008 episode of "Family Guy," he provided the voice for a cameo by Vultan.

Brian Blessed portrays Friar Tuck in "Robin Hood The Rebellion."
Coincidentally, in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," Blessed played
Kevin Costner's father, Lord Locksley, who ends up dead. We don't
know if that's a bad sign or not.