Set to take to the theaters on Friday, and featuring the talents of Hollywood heavyweights Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette, Robin Hood has in place many of the ingredients for the making of a blockbuster. Originality, however, is not among them. That’s not to knock the writers, artists and crew that made the film possible in any way. When you choose as subject a legendary character who has been part of storytelling and folklore since the 13th Century, it stands to reason that someone has probably given treatment to it by now.
A whole host of someones have, in fact. A cursory review of “Robin Hood” search results at the Internet Movie Database reveals several dozen instances of the mythical character’s appearance in movies and television. It seems pretty clear that the benevolent trickster who robs from the rich so that he can in turn give to the poor is one theme whose popular appeal transcends time.
Long before Russell Crowe slung a quiver full of arrows over his shoulder, rounded up his Merry Men and trudged into Sherwood Forest, lots of other Robin Hoods have graced the small and the silver screens. Here’s Tonic’s take on some of the most memorable banes of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s existence.
Robin Hood (1922) Starring Douglass Fairbanks, this was the first film to have a Hollywood premiere (held at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater), and was one of the 1920′s most expensive films with an almost unheard-of budget of $1 million.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Is it possible to pull off wearing tights with a studly panache to match that exuded by Errol Flynn? Doubtful. This example is considered by many to be the best film ever made to tell the Robin Hood tale, and is the role most identified as emblematic of Flynn’s highly popular and successful film career.
Robin Hood It didn’t take long following the popularization of television for the beloved character to figure into small screen entertainment. Befitting the English origins of the Robin Hood legend, the first serialized depiction of the character appeared on British broadcast media in the series in 1953.
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men Disney studios have given the Robin Hood character a couple significant treatments over the years. This live action, filmed-in-Technicolor feature starring Richard Todd hit the theaters in 1952.
Robin Hood Two decades later saw the release of more recognizably Disney fare, with 1973′s animated feature depicting the central characters as foxes and bears and other typical forest dwellers.
“Rabbit Hood” There are certainly more examples from the world of animation, perhaps none finer than the irrepressible Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc and the cadre of cracked geniuses who made Looney Toons possible. The Jones-directed episode from 1949 finds Bugs Bunny crossing paths with the Sheriff of Nottingham after snacking on the king’s carrots uninvited, ending with a live action appearance by Errol Flynn.
“Robin Hood Daffy” Jones also brought the beloved hero to life in 1958, with Daffy Duck as perhaps the most hapless and inept Robin Hood ever depicted, and Porky Pig as a Friar Tuck who could not possibly be more impressed by Robin Hood’s hollow-seeming claims to greatness, though Porky’s uncontainable peals of laughter suggest he’s impressed for entirely unintended reasons.
When Things Were Rotten Though far better known for films, Mel Brooks brought Robin Hood to TV in the short-lived, but uproariously funny, 1975 six-episode run starring Dick Gauthier as a bumbling and foolish version of Robin Hood. Taking a thematic device from the playbook of 1960s hit show Get Smart, the characters were made likable in spite of (and perhaps because of) their unbridled stupidity.
Time Bandits Zany, quirky, and irretrievably Pythonesque, John Cleese’s role as Robin Hood in fellow Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film puts a nutty spin on the beloved character by showing him to be an inattentive listener prone to muttering under his breath about what “awful people” the poor are:
Strutter: Four foot one.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights Mel Brooks revisited the subject nearly 20 years following his television take, bringing an entirely new interpretation to theaters in 1993. A spoof of the Robin Hood character in general (and of the widely deemed unfortunate 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner in particular), Brooks planted tongue-firmly-in-cheek for the raucous send-up with an unusually deep bench of performers, having cast Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Dave Chappelle, Dick Van Patten, Issac Hayes, Patrick Stewart and Dom DeLuise.
Robin Hood may be a single character, set in one and only one Sherwood Forest, but the durability of his legend has allowed him to mean many things to different people, as evidenced by the wide array pop culture portrayal: suave, a simpleton; debonair, denigrating; courageous, easily confused. We can expect that he’ll remain relevant for centuries to come, and ripe for the picking by creative entertainers. So long as there are rich and poor, there will always be call for being entertained by telling and retelling the exploits of Robin Hood and his crew.
Image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.