Bandit of Sherwood Forest

"But tyranny did not die. It merely slept. And now it has awakened again."
One of the laws of inevitability dictates that Robin Hood films come out every so often. To tie in with Russell Crowe's turn as the Sherwood outlaw, four movies - decades old and not exactly classics but all featuring Robin Hood - were simultaneously released on DVD: Columbia Pictures' PRINCE OF THIEVES, ROGUES OF SHERWOOD, and this one THE BANDIT OF SHERWOOD FOREST, and also Hammer's SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST.

1946's THE BANDIT OF SHERWOOD FOREST centers on Robin Hood's equally dashing son more so than on Robin Hood himself. It's been 20 years now since Robin Hood's heyday, but tyranny never sleeps for long, it apparently just takes catnaps. On the heels of the late wicked King John struts William of Pembroke, the ambitious Lord Regent of England. The Lord Regent (Henry Daniell, channeling his inner snake) decides that the Magna Carta isn't his cup of tea, that the people are not fit to rule themselves. He withdraws the Magna Carta and takes forceful custody of the boy King...

"What's a pretty girl like you doing all alone in Sherwood Forest?"
Although 1950's lacklustre Rogues of Sherwood Forest saw John Derek take on his fictional father's mantle to dispiritingly little effect, Columbia had done the whole son of Robin Hood thing four years earlier and much better in 1946's The Bandit of Sherwood Forest, with a slightly sleazy and wildly over-confident Cornel Wilde as Robert Hood (well, Robert of Huntingdon). He's called into the fray when his father (Russell Hicks) and the Merry Men, who are beginning to feel their age, renew the fight against tyranny after King John's death when Henry Daniell's evil Regent overthrows the Magna Carta and plans to kill the child king and steal his throne.

There's not much that's unexpected and despite the truly glorious Technicolor (courtesy of Tony Gaudio, who shot Errol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood with Sol Polito a decade earlier) and two directors (Henry Levin and George Sherman) it's hardly an A-list production, but it does it enjoyably enough en route to its final duel...

VERY VERY GOOD
Very clear video and an intriguing story about Robin Hood's son. Cornel Wilde did an excellent job - as he always did.

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