After the pointless death of King Richard (Richard Harris), that culminated many pointless years of crusades, an old and tired Robin Hood (Sean Connery) and Little John return to England to find Marian (Audrey Hepburn) a nun, Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker) and Will Scarlett (Denholm Elliott) thieves in Sherwood forest, the Sheriff (Robert Shaw) still in control of Nottingham, and things no better for the peasants.
Watching the classic Adventures of Robin Hood, or any of the numerous lesser tellings of the legend, is a little like watching many of the old westerns in that there is always a little prick in the back of my mind that something is wrong. In the case of the westerns, it is that the Indians were not cruel savages that were stopped from their evil deeds by noble soldiers, but were the victims of genocide by racists. For Robin, it is that King Richard was not a great king that cared about the people, but a violent thug that spent almost no time in England and used it only as a source of capital. He led barbaric crusades that are best described as a collection of atrocities. And that in the end, it didn’t matter that Robin beat Prince John, because John got the throne anyway (and was a better king than Richard, which is not a ringing endorsement).
The brilliant, tragic, and sometimes funny Robin and Marian does address that reality. But it isn’t a true-life rewrite of the legend. In general terms, it follows the old stories (as a majority of the films do), but it deals with the latter half of them that the others have ignored. The legend of Robin Hood does not stop when he faces down the Sheriff of Nottingham as a young man; it continues till his death. But Robin and Marian is also not just a completion of the myth. It is a story of loss and mortality, and of men never being able to live up to legends. And more than anything else, it is about age.
The moving and witty script by James Goldman, author of The Lion in Winter, needed the best actors in the business, and it got them. Sean Connery, with depth he had not previously been called upon to display, is the perfect tired and aging Robin. He is joined by Nicol Williamson, an actor whose roles rarely match his talent, as a loyal and simplistic Little John. The two are blessed with the best voices in cinema. It is a joy just to hear them speak. The third anchor is Audrey Hepburn, who returned to acting after a nine year absence. She is as lovely as ever, but conveys both wisdom and pain in her face.
In case it wasn’t clear, this is a love story. It is not a Swashbuckler except that it tells a story of characters who normally fit the genre. But here they aren’t the super-human charming rogues that are required for the genre; here they are human, a little too human. They are strong, brave, and very foolish. Exactly the people who could have inspired a legend, without ever being the larger-than-life entities that a legend requires. They are also too proud, a little stupid, and very uncertain. Half the time the characters don’t know why they did the things that they did and have no clue what they should be doing now.
As this is a story of people, not icons, the villains are almost as interesting as the heroes. The Sheriff is not a fountain of pure evil. He’s a sympathetic character who is much like Robin, and has no more future than he does. The Sheriff knows Robin better than Robin does, and is more literate than his colleagues, but he is no great mastermind in control of his emotions either. Like his old foe, he can be goaded into action by inconsequential jabs.
While time has been good to Robin and Marian, particularly because it has slowly reached its target audience (the studio’s initial ad campaign pushed it as a lighthearted romp of flashing swords, which led to a good deal of disappointment), and it is normally rated as one of the great romantic dramas, it still has its detractors. Most of those are simply unhappy that it isn’t an old-style Swashbuckler, with a surprising number not knowing that the legend of Robin does not end happily. Those with more knowledge tend to complain about the humor, thinking that it should be all melodrama. But that misses the point. Neither aging, nor the realization that you can never be what you have dreamed, is fully tragic or comedic, but a mix of the two. When you comprehend that the greatest portion of your life is past, that death is far closer than birth, and that you will never again do the things you once did, it isn’t a time for unending grief (if you think so, your latter years are going to be very sad). Sometimes, it is a time to laugh.
Stranger, I’ve heard people complain about the ending, claiming that no one would act the way Robin and Marian do in the final frames. Such statements miss the impact of love, at least on many of us. If these critics don’t see themselves in the film, let me assure them that it perfectly reflects how many of us would behave. That is one of the strengths of it.
The score is the film’s only weakness. Composer John Barry was chosen against director Richard Lester’s will, and had only a few weeks to complete his work. The result, when not too saccharine, sounds like it would fit a ’70s TV cop drama.
Robin and Marian is one of the great films of the ’70s. It is complex, with multilayered characters and serious themes. It also has laughs and emotional extremes, and it may pull a tear from those of you so inclined to cry at the movies.
Other Robin Hood Swashbucklers I’ve reviewed: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), Robin Hood (1991), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).