Nevertheless, MGM attempts to recreate many of the iconic sequences from Adventures of Robin Hood with Ivanhoe at the center, emphasizing a jousting tournament just as that earlier film did its archery contest. That book, in proper 19th century fashion, is also the source for reimagining Robin Hood as a fallen lord (it is Scott who we have to thank for the title “Robin of Locksley”), and Robin still appears in the film as Ivanhoe’s outlawed benefactor, played here by Harold Warrender. This is true to the Sir Walter Scott novel on which it is based. In the film, Taylor does not actually play Robin Hood, but rather the titular Ivanhoe. A stuffy and overcooked pageant that could only come out of the excesses of 1950s Hollywood, Ivanhoe is a beautiful looking bore, in no small part because MGM’s leading man Robert Taylor is more wooden than the oaks in Sherwood. Personally though, this Robin isn’t even worthy of a Facebook friend request.Īnd yet, unlike the ‘30s Errol Flynn movie, no one talks a whole lot about Ivanhoe anymore, because… it’s just not very good. The narrative comes down to a love triangle between Robin, Marian, and original character Sir Miles Folcanet, whose climactic slaying at the film’s limp climax convinces his patron, an inexplicable original creation named Baron Roger Daguerre, to pardon and befriend Robin. While taking a few passing cues from the Errol Flynn picture, Bergin’s Robin Hood is no more faithful to legends and beloved tales than Costner’s movie, yet its additions are louder, lousier, and ultimately ludicrous. Without the budget of Costner’s film, or some of the homespun magic of the various Disney adaptations, this is a garish looking film that is as empty as its sets. But more than casting, this movie’s problem is it just looks cheap and plays worse. The proto-hipster’s preference to the bombastic Kevin Costner version released in the same year, this British production is imagined to be more “authentic,” even if Robin Hood actor Patrick Bergin is an Irishman and Uma Thurman’s Marian is about as British as Costner’s cowboy Crusader.
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But we’re confident we have all the most important movies about Robin and his bow, so if you don’t like these rules, take it up with the Sheriff.Īh yes, that other Robin Hood movie from 1991. We have not included every production, and even intentionally excluded famed shorts, such as Robin Hood’s cinematic debut in the 1908 film, “Robin Hood and His Merry Men,” as well as television movies and series, including BBC’s popular 2000s Robin Hood show and Gen-X cult favorite, Robin of Sherwood(1984).
Every generation must have their Robin Hood… even if some are gifted with better variations than others.īelow is our ranking of the 11 generally most well-known Robin Hood movies. For like any icon of myth, the Prince of Thieves lends himself to constant reinvention and recontextualization. Indeed, thanks in large part to the charms of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Robin has been the star of one of the most important Hollywood films in cinema history, and that is just one of many silver screen adventures that have spanned more than a century. He also has more easily made the jump to cinema in the 20th century than many of his legendary peers of yore like King Arthur and Beowulf. One of the oldest and most beloved figures of English folklore, Robin of Locksley has evolved through the centuries from grifter and trickster to fallen nobleman, and finally to righteous social justice warrior enamored with a serious income distribution plan. Like a certain Saxon archer landing an arrow right down the center of a bullseye, another Robin Hood movie being around the corner is inevitable.