-“I love Beauty And The Beast!” Understandable.
-“I’ve always been partial to Snow White.” A fine film, Grandpa.
-”Gotta love Aladdin!” Rock on, #ChildOfThe90z.
-“Shrek is one of my all-time favorites!” Well, not Disney, but I guess it counts ... harumph.
-“Frozen really speaks to me.” I enjoy it also - now where are your parents?
-“OMG I ❤ Minions!” Get out of my house.
Ask anyone about Disney’s 1973 animated comedy, Robin Hood, and you’ll most likely get a response along the lines of “Oh yeah - I used to watch that all the time when I was a little kid.” In fact, I can’t think of many films that so many people have all seen and enjoyed in their youth, and then dismissed (or forgotten, more accurately,) than Robin Hood. What is it that has made this film so continuously favored, and yet unpopular at the same time?
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| A more believable romance than Bloom and Knightley |
Disney’s second film version of the English literary hero (the first being a lackluster live-action production from 1952, the studio’s second full-length live action feature following Treasure Island,) the film uses anthropomorphic animals to tell a heavily modified version of the original story. To be more precise, Disney’s Robin Hood tells a more-or-less original story utilizing a selection of characters and situations from the folklore tales, but blends them with a rowdy American South ethos that was gaining traction in US cinema at the time. Witness how director Wolfgang Reitherman (and a team of seven screenwriters) do away with all of Robin’s “Merrie Men” save for Little John, reimagining the pair as a medieval Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. While there are a few British voices to be heard, the cast is liberally sprinkled with American voices familiar from roles in westerns. The most obvious sign of this cultural mélange shows in the characterization of the Sheriff of Nottingham, here a bloated, tin star-wearing wolf voiced by Green Acres’ Pat Buttram, whom one could easily imagine flopping into a squad car and chasing down Smokey and the Bandit.
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| No one I think is in my tree... |
The titular character is voiced with rogue charm by Brian Bedford, an English actor primarily associated with the stage. Sounding for all intents and purposes like an animated version of Errol Flynn's iconic take on the character, Bedford’s Robin is nonetheless a solid anchor for a diverse voice cast. The fact that Bedford voices the foxy thief as a dashing romantic (rather than a wacky adventurer) seems to place the character above the cartoonish shenanigans going on around him. Following the archery competition, for example, Robin goes for the straight “rescue the damsel” routine while fending off his foes with a sword; this happens as the rest of the characters find themselves in an increasingly over-the-top melee scored to USC’s football anthem “Fight Song.”
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| Lady Kluck exposes herself |
English actress Monica Evans, in her final film role as the voice of Maid Marian, also plays the character as a straightforward (though glamourous - for a fox) leading-lady. Contrasted to the more goofy vocal performance of Carole Shelley (as Marian’s spirited lady-in-waiting, Lady Kluck,) Evans matches Bedford’s “marquee idol” take on the character. With the romantic leads played completely straight, we’re obviously a long way from the comical anthropomorphic characters of Disney’s Mickey Mouse shorts.
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| Ask your doctor if Cialis is right for you. |
Phil Harris is back as Little John following memorable performances in The Jungle Book and The Aristocats - and he’s basically playing Baloo again. Heck, even Little John’s character design is the same as the Jungle Book’s “Papa Bear,” just with a different color and a tunic-and-hat combo slapped on. Harris’ Little John does get a few good moments in, especially when he disguises himself, first as an extremely well-endowed gypsy woman, then as a foppish lord in an undersized pink outfit. Come to think of it, he wears this ruffled, skin-tight get-up again to Robin’s wedding in the film’s conclusion; Little John obviously has a thing for dressing effeminately. Good for him!
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| *Honk* |
The great Peter Ustinov, five years off of Blackbeard duty for Disney, is clearly having a grand old time as the greedily ineffectual Prince John. His violent raving and juvenile thumb-sucking tops everyone else in the cast for pure bombast, but works to elevate Robin Hood from a mildly amusing trifle to an honestly funny romp.
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| I suck softly, but I carry a big stick! |
The rest of the cast is comprised of voices from familiar character actors. Andy Devine, who often played comedic second-banana characters in a number of Hollywood westerns, gives a warm late-career performance as bastion of morality, Friar Tuck (here a befuddled badger.) Comedic Brit Terry-Thomas puts in a suitably reptilian performance as Prince John’s put-upon lackey, Sir Hiss - whose gap-toothed grin mimics the actor’s own trademark look. Disney stalwarts John Fielder and Barbara Luddy (familiar as the voices of Piglet and Kanga from Winnie The Pooh, among other films) also make brief appearances as the church-mouse Sexton and his wife, respectively. And country crooner Roger Miller appears as town minstrel (and Cock-of-the-walk) Alan-a-Dale, providing a deep, drawling vocal in both speaking and singing roles.
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| Hiss goes where no snake has gone before ... hopefully ... |
Said-same music plays a large role in making Robin Hood a laid-back affair. The score by Disney stand-by composer George Bruns adds touches of lush romanticism, with low horns and strings used to represent Robin and Marian’s love-story. Meanwhile, the twangy acoustic guitar numbers by Miller get stuck in your head almost instantaneously - no doubt why a sped-up version of the film’s opening song “Whistle-Stop” was utilized for one of the internet’s earliest memes, the dreaded “Hamster Dance” (you know the one: “Dee-ba dee da-dee da doh doh, dee ba-dilly doh!” … or something like that.) Also of note, the "Phoney King of England" sequence, while set to an entertainingly silly song, is rife with budget-saving animation re-traced from some of Disney's previous films.
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| What're you guys, like a cover band or something? |
The flip-side of this is the song “Not In Nottingham,” a surprisingly elegiac ballad accompanying one of the saddest sequences in Disney’s animated canon. The scene in which most of the townspeople are thrown into debtor's prison is one of those moments that, when viewed in childhood, seems simple enough; "that mean old Prince John has locked up the good citizens of Nottingham! We need Robin Hood to save the day!" However, viewing it as an adult, the dreary images of shackled elderly couples and groups of starving children hits a melancholy chord that makes this scene surprisingly difficult to watch.
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| It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away... |
As said before, there’s hardly a Disney fan alive who hasn’t seen Robin Hood at some point. An easy-to-digest movie, it’s an early favorite of many. Just as many of a certain age can all relate to the first time they were gut-punched when watching Bambi, so too do grins of recognition cross many faces when “Disney’s cartoon Robin Hood” is brought up. Even watching the movie for the zillionth time as an adult, it’s easy to understand why: beyond the deceptively depressing “Not In Nottingham,” the rest of the film plays like an extended Saturday morning cartoon, with simple-to-comprehend antics that are mostly played for laughs. That’s not to say that the film is without drama - the fiery finale, which sees both Prince John and the Sheriff at their nastiest, provides plenty of last-minute tension that young viewers are thrilled by.
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| Burn, motherfucker, burn... |
On the whole, however, the villains are not too villainous, the danger is not too dangerous, and the humor is kept broad to keep children entertained. The resulting breeziness of the film leads it to be categorized as “kiddy fare,” remembered as lightweight entertainment lacking in emotional depth. Whether such a label is completely deserved is questionable, however. I've actually found the film to offer plenty of dramatic resonance, only it doesn't display it as melodramatically as other animated fare. For many, Robin Hood will forever exude a feeling of effortless fun that makes it just as memorable as the studio's more ambitious efforts - more so than many of Disney’s other animated efforts in the ‘70s.
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