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Cheated out of his inheritance & accused of the murder of his own cousin
Henry (Eric Woolfe) by Henry's brother Roger (Peter Blythe) (the real killer),
Robin de Courtenay (Barrie Ingham) has to flee the de Courtenay Castle with his
trusted friend Friar Tuck (James Hayter), & team up with a gang of
rebellious Saxons, who only accept him, a Norman, because he has saved one of
them, little Steve Fitzwarren (John Gugolka) from Roger's deadly arrows.
Soon Robin, who adopts the name of Robin Hood, can turn the chaotic bunch of
men into a well-organized group of guerrillas, & when Roger & the
Sheriff of Nottingham (John Arnatt), who came to his help, try to lure Robin
back into the castle for an arrest by announcing the hanging of Will Scarlett
(Douglas Mitchell) at a fair, Robin & his merrie men manage to not only
free him but also little Steve's lovely sister Marian (Gay Hamilton) as well as
getting Little John (Leon Greene), an old friend of Robin's, to join them, all
by massive custard pie throwing (really).
From there on, Robin's gang of men seems to go from strength to strength,
robbing more & more tax-collectors & practically cutting off supply
routes for Castle de Courtenay, but Roger & Nottingham are not idle either
& soon they device a way to abduct little Steve & Marian, & as an
exchange for their lives, they force Robin to come to the castle alone &
unarmed - which he does.
But Robin has lived at the castle long enough to know a secret entrance
through which he has his most loyal men enter the place, & save him just in
time when he's about to be burned alive.
In the showdown, Robin defeats Nottingham & kills Roger's master-of-arms
Wallace (John Harvey), but is however almost killed by Roger, who is shot just
in time by Alan-a-Dale (Eric Flynn), Robin's most loyal man since he has saved
his life.
The Sheriff however manages to escape - & leaves the door wide open for
a sequelö that was never made.
Alfie Bass has a comic performance as pie-merchant.
Hammer's 3rd & last adapation of the Robin Hood-legend
(after Men of Sherwoood Forest
[1954] & Sword of Sherwood Forest
[1960]) is a rather free version of the actual story (in case you haven't
noticed). That Hammer, by 1967 a brand name for horror-pics, would do
another swashbuckling adventure movie at all would seem very odd at first, on
second thought though the companies strength was always turning out very
British costume dramas - if normally in a horror-context - which would come in quite handy
here.
Still, the
overall outcome of the movie would be less than satisfactory:
On the plus side, this movie profits from lush colours, a pictorial English
countryside and - as should be expected from Hammer - a solid supporting cast
& an effective use of cheap yet convincing sets. On the debit side however, Barrie Ingham
fails to bring any much needed charisma to the central character & the
script is rather dull, steeping kneedeep in medieval clichés that seem
terribly out of date in the late 60's, & for the most part it looks like
nothing more than an elaborate game of tag in the woods.
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