So I wrote a while back about buying the DVD set of the old English Sir Lancelot TV series, starring William Russell. All in all it was fairly disappointing, compared to my childhood memories. The production values were low, and the plots rather silly.
I expected little better when I bought the complete The Adventures of Robin Hood from the same period (at under 20 bucks a great deal, as it ran 143 episodes). I’m happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised. The Adventures of Robin Hood holds up considerably better than Sir Lancelot, or so it appears as I complete my viewing of the first season.
My main worry was ideological. As is well known, the producers of Robin Hood hired a number of American communists, blacklisted in Hollywood, to write for the series. My occasional viewing of random episodes over the years gave me the idea that party line came out in a number of story elements.
But (at least in the first season) I actually saw little of that. In fact, much is made of the injustice of the Norman’s stealing the property of Saxons (Robin in particular). At one point, somebody even goes so far as to say that unjust taxes are theft. Also, the Church is treated with considerable respect (doubtless in deference to English broadcasting standards of the day).
One of the earliest episodes (The Moneylender) involves a wicked moneylender in league with the Sheriff of Nottingham. I suppose there’s some anti-capitalism in that story, but they have to soft-pedal it, in particular because of a fact they don’t mention—that a moneylender in Richard I’s England would necessarily have been a Jew. They handle this by making no mention at all of the moneylender’s ethnicity (he’s played neutrally by a young but already fairly-Rumpoled Leo McKern).
A later episode (The Wanderer, I think) deals more directly with Jewish issues. The character here, a kindly physician who wears ringlets and speaks with an accent, is nevertheless never actually referred to as a Jew. There are references to “your people,” and “foreign influences,” but that’s it. Adults would recognize his Jewishness, but Gentile kids probably wouldn’t. In the end, when the physician is driven out of Nottingham by bigoted local doctors, Robin offers to give him a place in his band. The physician replies, with a smile, that Robin is really an amateur, a newcomer to outlawry compared to his own people.
All in all, I was impressed by the quality of the scripts. Also with the acting. Richard Greene, who played Robin, was a very good actor whose film career was derailed by military service in World War II. Archie Duncan (Little John) was a hard-working and reliable character actor, and got the slow-witted but loyal character perfectly. Alexander Gauge (Friar Tuck) was, in my opinion, the best Tuck ever, even better than Eugene Pallette in the Errol Flynn version. As in the Sir Lancelot series, the same characters tend to appear over and over in different roles, but it’s not as blatant here, largely because the cast is larger, and fresh people do get mixed in. (Of particular note [so shameless it’s a delight] is the case of the small actor Victor Woolf, who started out playing an outlaw named Cedric, then got his name changed to Derwent, and played various bit parts as well, sometimes two or three in a single episode.)
Special notice is due to Alan Wheatley, who played the Sheriff of Nottingham for several seasons. Vain, stylish, utterly corrupt, he is softened (and often deceived) through his romantic attraction to Maid Marian (Bernadette O’Farrell in the early seasons). Probably the best sheriff ever, with the possible exception of Robert Shaw in the movie Robin and Marian.
The sets are particularly good. The series art director, Peter Proud, pioneered the technique of building independent set elements and putting them on wheels, so that they could be arranged in varying combinations to create fresh sets. It gives the program the illusion of a much larger scenery budget than it actually enjoyed.
One thing I think this series got absolutely right—and nobody, as far as I know, has gotten it right since, except possibly the Disney animated version, which I’ve never seen—is the incorporation of fun into the story. More recent Robin Hoods, weighed down by dreams of Social Significance, have made heavy work of what started out as a series of ballads, most of them rather funny. It is the merry men, after all. Every little boy would like to live in the woods, and here there’s a sense that the outlaws are having a good time too, when the sheriff isn’t bothering them.
For instance, one episode involves the sheriff besieging Robin and Little John in Sir Richard of the Lea’s castle. The two outlaws respond, not with mighty acts of archery, but with feasting, drinking, and dancing with Maid Marian. Eventually Sir Richard has to employ a ruse to get them outside, and then lock the gate on them. Otherwise he’d be eaten out of house and home.
Another episode has Robin, just for a lark, making a bet with Friar Tuck that he can make more money in a day by posing as a beggar than Tuck can by praying. It’s an amusing episode, and straight out of the ballads.
In short, I like this series, at least through the first season. It far exceeded my expectations. Suitable for all ages. It will be especially appreciated by Boomers of my generation, but I suspect it’s good enough for anyone to enjoy.