The Men of Sherwood Forest

Swashbuckling , action , romance and dueling in this entertaining adventure movie . Robin Hood, also known Robin O'Locksley and the Earl of Huntingdom, is probably and sadly a creation of romantic imaginations . If Robin Hood did exist, it's almost certain that he was not a Saxon , though his enemies may well have been the Norman sheriff of Nottinghan and Prince and later king John Lackland . In 13th century England, Robin Hood (Don Taylor) , the World's Most Renowned Swordsman , along with band of marauders as Little John (Leslie Linder) , Friar Tuck (Reginald Beckwith) , Will Scarlett and confront local corruption and lead an uprising against the Sheriff that will forever alter the balance of world power . Robin lives again , a hero of every villain , friend to those who have friends . The movie now opens with a prologue : 1194 A.D. England is a troubled land . King Richard the Lion Heart is a prisoner in Germany with but half his ransom paid at home . His brother Prince John is intriguing to obtain the crown himself . In the county of Nottingham Robin Hood and his outlaw band take toll from Richard travellers . And it is a bold voyager indeed who ventures to ride through Sherwood Forest . Robin riding into the forest on horseback and his identity is never revealed , being mercilessly chased by the Sheriff's men . Robin Hood pretends to avoid the killing of the King Richard and disguised as a minstrel or troubadour enters at the enemy stronghold . Robin Hood formulates a plan to rescue Richard ,but being discovered his masquerade , as he is captured himself and while the sheriff plans to eliminate him .

The movie has acceptable action sequences well staged with stylish and vitality , adventure , romance and is pretty entertaining ; however being realized in TV style and a lot of scenes set at castle interior. There are some nice action sequences including the battles in forests and the ending confrontation at the climax of the film . The movie was shot on natural sets , but mostly in studio : Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire, England with functional production design by Elder Wills . Colorful cinematography by Walter Harvey , it fact it was the first color film by Hammer .

The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Val Guest . He was a craftsman expert on terror genre for Hammer production , . Val's directorial debut came in 1943 with Miss London Ltd. (1943). He has since been responsible for some of the best, mediocre and indeed worst British films of our time . He made nice science fiction movies as Quatermass experiment (1955) and sequel : Quatermass 2 , The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth(1970) , Hammer follow up to One Million Years B.C. (1966). And other movies as The Abominable Snowman (1957) , The Camp on Blood Island (1958), Expresso Bongo (1959) ,Where the Spies Are (1966) ,The Boys in Blue (1982), among others .

Other versions about this famous character are the following ones : ¨Robin Hood and his Merrie men ¨(1952) by Ken Annakin with Richard Todd and Peter Finch ; ¨Robin Hood price of thieves (1991) ¨ by Kevin Reynolds with Kevin Costner , Alan Rickman and Morgan Freeman , the same year was exhibited ¨Robin Hood¨ by John Irvin with Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman but was a flop though the critics considered best adaptation . The classic rendition is ¨The adventures of Robin Hood¨ by Michael Curtiz with Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland and recent rendition Robin Hood by Ridley Scott with Russell Crowe , Oscar Isaac and Cate Blanchet.

Now, I haven't seen that many Robin Hood movies at all (actually, I've only seen two: the superior animated Disney version and Kevin Costner's rather boring "Prince of Thieves") but that isn't even necessary to notice this is a pretty good and unjustly obscure version about the legendary English folklore hero. This is the first of at least three Robin Hood movies produced by the awesome Hammer Studios – coincidentally also their very first film in color – and I'm ready to check them all out if they're as entertaining as "The Men of Sherwood Forest". The story is fast-paced, full of ecstatic characters and vivid adventure and steadily directed by the ever reliable Val Guest. He can pretty much be considered as Hammer's second best director, right behind Terence Fisher who incidentally also directed one of the other Hammer Robin Hood flicks, namely "Swords of Sherwood Forest" starring Peter Cushing and Oliver Reed. This earlier and obviously low-budgeted gem doesn't tell the conventional Robin Hood fable, but an entirely new one that hardly involves any looting, corrupt Sheriffs of Nottingham or Maid Marians. Robin and his loyal gang, including Little John and Friar Tuck, learn that the one true king of England – Richard Lionheart – will soon return home after being in prisoner in Germany. Eminent accomplices of his malignant brother Prince John intend to assassinate King Richard on his way home and put the blame on Robin Hood and his gang, but naturally the jolly hero in green is always several steps ahead of them. Don Taylor is really excellent in the role of Robin Hood. He's the ideally handsome, charismatic and heroic performer you'd expect. Taylor retired from acting in the mid 60's already, but became a respectable director and made some really cool genre films like "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "Damien: The Omen II" and "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". The one person to steal the show completely is Reginald Beckwith as Friar Tuck. He escapes from every perilous situation by luring his opponents into various sorts of gambling schemes. Undemanding, light-headed 50's entertainment for the whole family.

This film came out about one year before the Richard Greene TV series.Although the later was made on a small budget at Walton studios it comes out as infinitely superior to this film.It looks as if Hammer have blown the budget on the Eastman colour.Everything else seems to have been done on the cheap.There seem to be very few inhabitants of the forest or the castle.The situations are quite poor and the action scenes not very exciting.Don Taylor makes an undistinguished Robin Hood.In fact the only decent actor in the bunch is Reginald Beckwith who does a good turn as Friar Tuck.A big problem is that there isn't a decent Sheriff.Alas no Claude Rains or Peter Cushing.So all told a fairly uninspiring effort.

Although this film is on a modest, low-budget scale, it is an amiable and worthy successor to Erroll Flynn's more spectacular heroics. Handsome and agile Don Taylor inhabits the character of Robin as naturally as if he were born for it. Even though he's an American actor among an otherwise totally British cast, the doughty Taylor never strikes a wrong note and is perfectly at ease carrying on his exploits at a brisk pace in a strikingly comfortable medieval ambiance.

Hammer's first film in colour, and the first of a trio of Robin Hood adventures they made over the years.

The woodland around Bray, familiar from Hammer's later gothic horrors, here serves as Sherwood Forest. The film has a jolly script, done justice by the cast, which contains none of the later Hammer regulars; although some (like Ballard Berkeley and Leonard Sachs) later became familiar on TV, and several of the cast were to appear soon afterwards in 'The Quatermass Experiment' (notably David King Wood, who here plays the saturnine Sir Guy). An uncredited Bernard Bresslaw who plays a gormless guard was later up for the role of Frankenstein's monster, and only lost out to Christopher Lee because his agent asked for more money.

Lanky Don Taylor, the then obligatory American star, does a good job of emulating the impishness and grace of Errol Flynn; while Eileen Moore's mischievous 'Lady Alys' (with lips more blood red than any of Dracula's later brides) looks good both in tights and on horseback.