Canaglia eroica

Jon Hall acquits himself fine in this standard "Robin Hood" story. This time he and his gang of foresters and rebels have to try and thwart the devious aspirations of the Baron "Gilbert" (H. B. Warner) and his sidekick "Sir Philip" (Lowell Gilmore) before the love of his life "Lady Marian" (Patricia Morison) is married off. It's colourful and quickly paced with plenty of swordplay (possibly not the most convincing, but still...) and Alan Mowbray also contributes well as the sagely and substantial "Friar Tuck". The ending is a bit daft (just how useless can loads of soldiers be against three men?) and you''ll probably not remember this for long afterwards, but it passes an hour or so amiably enough and I did quite enjoy it.

Jon Hall is Robin Hood, Patricia Morison is Lady Marian, and Alan Mowbray is Friar Tuck in this B-movie version of the story you've encountered a zillion times.

It's directed by Howard Bretherton, a competent but not particularly notable B director of the era, and there's little here of remark, except that in the battle scene in which Robin and his Merrie Men overwhelm the forces of Prince John, the swordplay is pretty good. Not that it makes sense when the vastly outnumbered good guys are not attacked by the bad guys at every opportunity. The good part is that when the crowds are fighting, they don't wave their swords up in the air, as if they are being attacked by bats.

The Cinecolor photography has that brown, dusty look that the process was prone to in its good prints. Otherwise, there's nothing going on here, move along.

This is not the caliber of Errol Flynn's Robin Hood but it's still a good take on the legend. Jon Hall plays are hero nicely but not with the charm of Flynn. The film is worth watching if you have a lazy afternoon and you have a chance to watch - but I wouldn't go out of my way to find this film though it's decent enough.

6.5/10.

Totally unconvincing action scenes that border on being silly. Full of moments such as the bad guys falling over because a wall hanging almost dropped on top of them and strangely they can't get up. Nothing about this movie works. The plot is paper thin and it's hard to believe they paid money for the script. My favourite worst line being "ride you devils!" Robin to his band of not very merry men. I can't remember what happened after they rode. Not very much I think. The accents aren't English and the acting poor. No care was taken. A low bar was set and not met. Not sure why I rated this as highly as a 2.

In 1938, Warner Brothers made the most perfect version of the Robin Hood stories, "The Adventures of Robin Hood". It was an amazing picture...one of the best and most iconic of the 1930s. It also was a GORGEOUS spectacle made in full Technicolor when very few films took on the added expense of this color process. In light of how perfect the film is, it's actually VERY surprising that Columbia would make such a second-rate version of Robin Hood. It lacks the wonderful cast of the Errol Flynn version and just looks cheap...especially since they made it using Cinecolor. Why do I complain about Cinecolor? Because unlike the Technicolor of the day which used three colors to produce the full spectrum of colors, Cinecolor used two colors...an orange-red and a bluish-green. As a result, many colors simply are off and you don't get colors such as yellow, purple or green. Not having green in a Robin Hood film is a HUGE mistake!!

The story begins with some jerk trying to kill Maid Marion and her brother. Of course, Robin (Jon Hall) appears from almost no where the stops the guy with an arrow to his wrist! Ouch! Later, Robin learns that a woman is being forced to marry one of King John's kin and Robin and his men set out to rescue her. Of course this means bows and arrows, sword play and adventure.

So is this any good? It's not bad and it's a shame they just didn't re-write the script to make the characters unique and NOT Robin Hood et al. You just cannot compare the handsome but dull Jon Hall to Errol Flynn...and the same can be said of most of his merry men. As a result, it's watchable and not a bad film...but it's not a particularly great one either.