Robin Hood, aging none too gracefully, returns exhausted from the Crusades to woo and win Maid Marian one last time.
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CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
I didn’t really appreciate this film when I was younger. I much preferred the colourful flourishing of Errol Flynn and Michael Curtiz’s take on the Robin Hood legend and found this a bit slow. Now, though, I actually rather like this interpretation of just how this folk legend might have aged after his return from the crusades. It’s on those travels that the impetuous and frequently boozed-up King Richard (Richard Harris) falls foul of a rogue arrow and so when Robin (Sean Connery) returns to an England in the hands of King John, he finds that the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) is still ruling the roost and the Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn) has taken her vows. With the Sheriff bent on arresting her, Robin arrives just in the nick of time to rescue her from his clutches and so reinvigorate their old rivalry. Marian isn’t best pleased with her erstwhile Romeo, so some prickly antics ensue between the pair as he starts to reassemble what’s left of his brigade of Lincoln green-clad warrior-pensioners before the sheriff and his equally aged men force battle upon them. There’s quite an entertaining sarcasm to some of the script, a stocism that quite nicely sums up the drawbacks of the ageing process and the denouement shows that both Connery and Shaw seem quite enthusiastic about portraying characters in need of as many surgical supports as 12th century medicine could provide. Despite it’s sometimes almost slapstick approach, it has a certain grace to it as these rivals acknowledge a grudging respect for each other and as Hepburn’s feisty nun looks more like a role her namesake Katharine might have delivered. There’s a solid supporting cast to help keep it moving along and there’s enough geriatric swash and buckle - with the emphasis more on the latter, to keep this entertaining. Growing old graciously is over-rated, clearly!
