Movies

This is a real collector's item. A literate script by Bill Goldman's older brother, Jim, something of an anglophile despite being born and bred in Chicago - he'd already weighed in with The Lion In Winter, both stage and then screenplay plus the novel Myself As Witness, about King John, so he was right at home in the territory. Thirteen years after From Russia With Love Robert Shaw and Sean Connery are back as adversaries though this time around there's a healthy dose of the love-hate aspect now obligatory since The Prisoner Of Zenda brought it off to a fare-thee-well. The autumnal feel is palpable from the first image of decaying fruit and is reinforced by the muted, pastel rather than oil pastoral settings. This leaves only the playing which runs the gamut from more-than-competent to exquisite. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness indeed, in spades. 9/10

Yes...that title was a direct response to the king of middlebrow criticism, Leonard Maltin. Let me say at the onset that this film was simply superb, one of the best films of 1976.Richard Lester works the same magic here that he worked in his wonderful Musketeers films..he breathes new life into a timeless myth. James Goldmans script is, in fact, a meditation on old age and the passing of heroic values.Audrey Hepburn is incandescent in this, her last performance. Sean Connery, Robert Shaw , and Nicol Williamson are uniformly excellent. Connery portrays Robins heroic desperation and his undying tenderness for Marian.Nicol Williamson embodies dogged, simple minded loyalty.Robert Shaw is a stupendous villain. He interprets the Sheriff of Nottingham as a prototypical servant of the emerging nation state.In short, this is a terrific film, perhaps the greatest reworking of the legend since Errol Flynn.

I discovered this absolute masterpiece several decades ago. I fell in love with it the minute I finished to watch it. So typical of the seventies and its sadness and its disenchantment. It's a true awesome poignant, moving love story, one of the best ever for me. And so millions miles away from the Hollywood films, especially the Kevin Costner's crap. But not the Errol Flynn's feature of course. This is really a sad story, especially where we see Robin Hood and his little army of rogues who train as if they prepared for the war, with straw dummies. You expect a big fight, fierce, bloody...But nothing of this kind happens. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. They are all eventually wiped out without fight. I highly recommend it. But I perfectly understand that most audiences, used to Hollywood films, don't appreciate this feature that much.