Robin and Marian

I'm sure most people know the traditional Robin Hood story about how Robin and his merry men hid out in Sherwood Forest and stole from the rich to give to the poor. Even more so, the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood has probably shaped people's perception of the legend, even among people who have never seen that movie. A much different look at Robin Hood comes in the movie Robin and Marian.

Sean Connery plays Robin, who after getting Marian away from Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, decides to leave her off to the side for a bit while he goes off and fights the Crusades together with Richard the Lionhearted. That "bit" turns out to be a good decade or more, during whch time Richard (Richard Harris) dies in France, making his brother John (Ian Holm) the new king. This leads Robin to go back to Nottingham.

Robin and his best friend Little John (Nicol Williamson) meet Will Scarlett (Denholm Elliott) and Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker), and learn from them that Nottingham hasn't changed much, what with the old Sheriff (Robert Shaw) still being just as nasty and dictatorial as ever. Robin wants to see Marian (Audrey Hepburn), who is in Kirkley, so it's off to Kirkley.

Kirkley, however, is an abbey, and Marian is the prioress, more or less, leading a group of nuns. The way she sees it, Robin left and never came back, and she never received any word from him, so as far as she knew he was dead. So what else was she supposed to do. Worse is that the Sheriff is looking to arrest Marian for, well, reasons that aren't particularly well explained as far as I coud tell.

That's bad enough, but worse for Robin is that Marian plans on letting herself be taken peacefully by the sheriff, probably because that might let the other nuns get on with the business of surviving at the abbey. If she doesn't go, the sheriff is probably perfectly willing to burn the whole place down to punish Marian. Robin, however, isn't having any of this, and decides he's going to take Marian into Sherwood Forest if he can.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse between the aging Robert and Sheriff, with King John being aghast at the rebellion up in the North even though he's planning to invade France again. John, for his part, would rather partkake in pleasure if he can instead of fighting all these battles. And the Sheriff sees his own chance to carve out some power for himself.

Robin and Marian is an interesting take on the legends, with the ingenious idea of recognizing that everybody gets old if they don't die young; however, a lot of people don't want to admit that they're getting older. Most certainly, Robin and the Sheriff don't want to admit this, as we can see when the two agree to have a one-on-one combat to determine who will win the battle. It's brutal but also not particularly well-fought compared to the swashbuckling we see from Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Of course, it's supposed to be poorly-fought, since these two guys are past their primes.

Sean Connery gives a very good performance as Robin, while Audrey Hepburn is even better as Marian. But all of the supporting players are also quite good and deftly impart the film's elegiac tone. Robin and Marian isn't the adventure film people who want adventure films might expect, but again, that's the whole point, and in getting that point across, it succeeds wildly.

Younger viewers may not care for Robin and Marian, but I think more mature film fans definitely will.