Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960) – Review

Richard Greene returns as Robin Hood in Sword of Sherwood Forest, bringing his television incarnation from The Adventures of Robin Hood to the big screen for Hammer Films. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film trades the television series’ half-hour adventures for a compact feature-length conspiracy involving crooked nobles, a threatened Archbishop and Peter Cushing looking magnificently evil. It is Robin Hood by way of Hammer, although anyone expecting the studio to suddenly discover the production values of Ben-Hur is going to have a rather long afternoon.

The film opens with Robin Hood (Richard Greene) rescuing a badly wounded man (Desmond Llewelyn) who is being hunted through Sherwood Forest by the Sheriff’s men. Before expiring, the stranger presses a mysterious gold medallion into Robin’s hands, giving our hero both a clue and the sort of mysterious jewellery that invariably means trouble. Robin then has a rather pleasant meet-cute with Maid Marian Fitzwater (Sarah Branch), who later leaves him a note asking him to meet her at a local inn.

Sherwood Forest is great for these kinds of hook-ups.

Unfortunately, the Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing) is also there, offering Robin a full pardon in exchange for information about the mysterious outlaw. Robin quite reasonably refuses to sell himself out, at which point the Sheriff’s men emerge from hiding, and he has to fight his way out. Marian, who knew absolutely nothing about the treachery, had actually arranged the meeting because she wanted Robin to obtain his pardon, thereby making him respectable enough to become eligible dating material.

Medieval romance apparently comes with paperwork.

The Sheriff responds to this setback by leading a large armed contingent into Sherwood Forest, where Little John (Nigel Green) and fellow Merry Man Martin (Derren Nesbitt) spot the soldiers approaching. Little John rides back to warn Robin while Martin stays behind to keep watch, which turns out to be an exceptionally poor career decision. The Sheriff catches Martin and offers him the usual medieval employee-benefits package: reveal Robin’s whereabouts and receive a pardon, or keep quiet and die. Martin gives up the location of Robin’s current hideout, only to be murdered anyway because apparently the Sheriff considers promises optional. Marian later discovers the dying Martin and is understandably horrified, while the Sheriff continues his campaign against Robin and anyone unfortunate enough to have met him.

“Sheriff, I’m getting the impression that you are…not nice.”

While visiting Friar Tuck (Niall MacGinnis), Robin encounters Edward, Earl of Newark (Richard Pasco) and Lord Melton (Oliver Reed), who are impressed by his skill with a bow and decide to recruit this talented stranger for a spot of assassination. Their intended victim is Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Jack Gwillim), who is acting as regent for King Richard the Lionheart while the king is away on crusade. The Archbishop is blocking the Sheriff’s plan to confiscate the estate of the late Lord of Bawtry, who has conveniently died overseas, so the Sheriff and his noble accomplices decide that murder is an efficient way of resolving the legal dispute. Robin, naturally, has no interest in murdering an innocent Archbishop, although the Earl and Melton initially have no idea that the suspiciously capable archer they are courting is the notorious Robin Hood.

“Should we split arrows? I’m really good at that.”

Maid Marian, meanwhile, seeks out the Archbishop for her own reasons, hoping to secure the land that rightfully belongs to Martin’s family despite the Sheriff’s insistence that she stay out of “outlaw dealings.” As the Earl continues testing Robin’s archery skills, the Sheriff eventually arrives and exposes Robin’s identity, forcing our hero to escape. Robin soon learns that Marian is on her way to meet the Archbishop, putting her directly in the path of the Sheriff’s schemes and the Earl’s increasingly murderous ambitions. From there the film barrels through ambushes, disguises, sword fights, escapes and the appearance of a suspiciously evil prioress, because apparently no Robin Hood adventure is complete without at least one member of the clergy who looks like she has been waiting years for an opportunity to betray somebody.

She’s the kind of nun who would help the Nazis.

Matters reach their appropriately bloody conclusion when Melton turns on the Sheriff after he objects to the Earl’s plan to murder the Archbishop inside a priory, because sacrilege is apparently one level of evil even the Sheriff considers excessive. Robin eventually exposes the conspiracy, the Archbishop survives and justice triumphs, proving once again that stealing the estate of a dead crusader is not a particularly sustainable business model when Robin Hood keeps shooting arrows at your plans.

And then it’s happy endings in Sherwood Forest.

Stray Observations:

• The Sheriff decides that assassinating the Archbishop is the sensible solution to a property dispute. Medieval conflict resolution was apparently not big on mediation.
• The conspirators recruit Robin Hood to murder the Archbishop without knowing the man they are trying to hire is the notorious Robin Hood, who is opposed to murdering innocent people. Excellent vetting process.
• The Archbishop travels around with considerably less security than you might expect for the man effectively running England while the king is away fighting a crusade.
• The Earl of Newark produces a pumpkin as an archery target despite the fact that pumpkins are native to the Americas and therefore have no business turning up in medieval England. History has been stabbed in the back by a vegetable.
• Oliver Reed appears as Lord Melton, looking considerably younger and already possessing the sort of face that suggests he has just thought of something unpleasant.
• Robin and his men repeatedly solve problems with disguises, deception and swordplay because apparently medieval England had no functioning complaints department.
• The Sheriff refusing to commit sacrilege is a nice surprise. Getting backstabbed by his own villainous partners is an even bigger one. Apparently, even Peter Cushing’s Sheriff of Nottingham has standards. They just happen to begin and end somewhere around murdering people and stealing their estates.

The Sheriff should have read the fine print on the villainy contract.

960’s Sword of Sherwood Forest grew naturally out of the enormous success of The Adventures of Robin Hood, the popular television series that had run from 1955 to 1959 with Richard Greene as the legendary outlaw. Greene and Sidney Cole produced the feature for Hammer in association with Yeoman Films, effectively taking the familiar television hero and giving him a Technicolor, widescreen adventure. The project therefore arrived with an unusual built-in advantage: audiences already knew Greene as Robin, while Hammer could bring its own stable of dependable performers and its house director, Terence Fisher, into the mix.

He’s no Errol Flynn, but Greene is a solid Robin Hood.

The production is also something of an oddity in Hammer’s history because, unlike most of the company’s films of this period, it was not made at its permanent home at Bray Studios in Berkshire. Instead, production was based at Ardmore Studios on Herbert Road in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, with the surrounding Irish countryside providing the locations, including the Powerscourt Estate at Enniskerry. The decision gives the picture a surprisingly lush backdrop, with Wicklow standing in for Sherwood Forest and giving the film a genuine sense of open countryside rather than the usual collection of familiar Hammer locations wearing medieval costumes.

We get some fun romping through Sherwood Forest.

Alan Hackney’s screenplay and Terence Fisher’s direction keep the incidents jouncing along at a brisk enough pace that the film rarely has time to become tedious. A contemporary New York Times review similarly praised Hackney’s script and Fisher’s direction for keeping the action moving, while noting that the nicely tinted Sherwood Forest was as pretty as could be, Sarah Branch was an exceptionally voluptuous Maid Marian, and Greene was suitably limber, with Peter Cushing and Richard Pasco singled out for praise.

This film sports some great villainy.

The cast is one of the film’s strongest assets. Richard Greene is completely comfortable slipping back into Robin Hood, while Peter Cushing has an obvious field day as the Sheriff, playing villainy with the polished menace he could produce almost on demand. Nigel Green makes a sturdy Little John, Niall MacGinnis brings his usual characterful presence to Friar Tuck, Richard Pasco is effective as the Earl of Newark, Jack Gwillim gives the Archbishop some authority, and a very young Oliver Reed turns up as Lord Melton. Desmond Llewellyn also appears, years before becoming Q in the James Bond films. Most importantly, however, Greene is the only actor actually reprising his television role; the rest of the principal cast were new performers, even though several actors, including Nigel Green and Llewellyn, had appeared in the television series in other roles.

Nigel Green is one of my favourite Little Johns.

Compared with the great cinematic Robins who came before it, Sword of Sherwood Forest is much less flamboyant. Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood remains the gold standard for sheer swashbuckling spectacle, while Richard Greene’s television version was built around shorter adventures, familiar characters and a reassuringly episodic rhythm. This Hammer feature sits awkwardly between those worlds: it has the colour, widescreen presentation and theatrical ambitions of a feature film, but structurally it still feels like an expanded television adventure. Later Robin Hood films, from Richard Lester’s Robin and Marian to Kevin Reynolds’ Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, would attempt to make the legend darker, grander or more historically grounded. Sword of Sherwood Forest is content to give us Peter Cushing plotting murder while Richard Greene rides through Ireland shooting arrows at people, which is admittedly a perfectly respectable afternoon. He also has some fun villains to face off against.

Don’t miss out on this early Oliver Reed performance.

In conclusion, Sword of Sherwood Forest is an entertaining but modest Hammer adventure that never quite escapes the shadow of the television series from which it sprang. The cast is solid, the Irish locations are attractive, Fisher keeps the action moving, and Cushing is exactly the sort of Sheriff you want when the assignment calls for someone to look guilty before he has even opened his mouth. Unfortunately, the film does have a “we’re still making an episode of the series” feel when it comes to production value and storytelling scale. The big-screen version of a popular television series makes a rather feeble addition to the Robin Hood legend, but the actors try hard, Fisher keeps things lively, and the whole enterprise has enough charm to make its shortcomings forgivable. It is hardly a definitive Robin Hood adventure, but for a Hammer film made in the shadow of its own television predecessor, it puts up a surprisingly game fight.

Mill of the Stone Women (1960) – Review

Italian cinema of the early ’60s had a flair for grand horror melodrama. Still, Mill of the Stone Women (Il mulino delle donne di pietra) might be its most baroquely unhinged example. It’s beautiful, bizarre, and far too committed to its premise to be brushed off as just another knockoff. This is a film that believes deeply in its madness, even when it’s covered in cobwebs and screaming in Dutch.

We are introduced to writer Hans van Arnhim (Pierre Brice), who travels to a remote island in Holland to research a story about the fabled Mill of the Stone Women, a carousel of female statues created by art professor and sculptor Gregorius Wahl (Herbert A.E. Böhme). Gregorius allows Hans to stay in the mill’s attic, where he stores some of his unused sculptures. This is never a good sign when visiting a horror movie artist. Hans meets and quickly falls for Elfie (Scilla Gabel), the professor’s sickly but captivating daughter. When Hans’s girlfriend, Liselotte Kornheim (Dany Carrel), shows up for a visit, she gets one look at the creepy carousel of waxy women and promptly faints, proving once again that horror heroines have an iron will until the plot requires them to swoon.

 

“She’s suffering from Horror Heroine-itis.”

Later, Professor Wahl reveals that Elfie suffers from a mysterious illness, you know, the kind that’s always hereditary, terminal, and deeply useful for plot twists. Their resident doctor, Loren Bohlem (Wolfgang Preiss), provides her constant medical care, which usually involves ominous syringes and whispered instructions. He’s also creepily in love with Elfie. When Hans tries to end his relationship with Elfie, she goes full Gothic heroine: shrieking, threatening, and then collapsing in a bloody fit worthy of a silent film. She dies in his arms, and just to really sell the tragedy, her face breaks out in some sort of cinematic rash.

 

Not your typical reaction to rejection.

That night, Hans experiences visions that would make Vincent Price proud: he hears piano music, sees Elfie’s ghost, and ends up in the cemetery staring down at her corpse. Not to mention seeing the bound figure of Annelore (Liana Orfei), one of Whal’s models, in a locked room. Could the “tranquillizers” that Dr. Bohlem gave him be the answer? When Gregorius wakes in a panic, the professor dismisses him as delusional. That is, until Elfie strolls down the stairs alive and glowing like she’s just returned from the spa. Wahl promptly decides Hans is insane and kicks him out, which, in fairness, is the logical response when someone accuses your undead daughter of haunting your mill. But was he having delusions or being horribly gaslit? Is Elfie a ghost, or is something more sinister going on?

 

My money is on the latter.

Of course, it’s all part of the grand, blood-soaked plan. Wahl and Dr. Bohlem have been keeping Elfie alive through transfusions of unwilling donors. Their victims are later encased in wax and installed on the carousel as “art.” When Hans and his friends return to rescue the abducted Liselotte, who is a perfect blood match for Elfie’s cure, they discover the grisly truth. Annelore’s corpse half-prepared for display, Bohlem confessing his love, and Wahl losing what’s left of his mind. The mill erupts into flames as Wahl perishes beside his beloved creations, the carousel of stone women turning one final, fiery time.

 

Windmills do tend to burst into flames in horror films.

Stray Observations:

• The title alone sounds like a prog rock album: Mill of the Stone Women, probably featuring a 12-minute flute solo.
• That carousel of women? Equal parts creepy and hypnotic. It’s like a morbid amusement park ride for necrophiles with good lighting.
• Elfie’s miraculous recovery every few scenes makes one wonder if Holland’s healthcare system was secretly ahead of its time.
• There’s something morbidly poetic about an artist literally pouring his life into his creations. It’s just… maybe use clay next time, Gregorius.
• If a beautiful and mysterious woman wants to jump your bones, completely out of the blue, it’s best to consider that there is something odd going on.

 

Beautiful women obsessed with love, what are you gonna do?

Directed by Giorgio Ferroni, Mill of the Stone Women is a rare hybrid: part Gothic romance, part mad-scientist thriller, and part art-school fever dream. It owes as much to House of Wax as to Frankenstein, but Ferroni infuses it with a distinctly European melancholy. The film’s Technicolor palette is astonishing, with every frame looking like a painting lit by candlelight and anxiety, thanks in no small part to Pier Ludovico Pavoni’s sumptuous cinematography. Pavoni bathes the film in rich, painterly hues that make the shadows glow and the nightmares shimmer. Arrigo Equini’s set design, especially the mill itself, feels like something out of a haunted fairy tale: spindly walkways, flickering torches, and those ever-turning stone women silently watching everything unfold.

 

Dark mysteries await the brave and the stupid.

Pierre Brice plays Hans as the classic Gothic innocent—earnest, slightly dim, and perpetually wandering into rooms he shouldn’t. Scilla Gabel’s Elfie, meanwhile, gives the film its tragic pulse, a doomed heroine who’s both victim and monster, depending on the lighting. Herbert Böhme chews every available piece of scenery as Professor Wahl, the archetypal mad artist whose “creative process” involves a lot of screaming, stabbing, and wax. Wolfgang Preiss’s Dr. Bohlem, too, is a standout—a man so committed to unethical medicine he could have a guest lecture slot at Castle Frankenstein.

 

When mad art and mad science collide.

What elevates the film beyond its pulp premise is its atmosphere. It’s drenched in Gothic romanticism, where every gesture feels like it was rehearsed in a thunderstorm. The pacing may occasionally wobble (it’s Italian Gothic; of course it does), but its combination of surreal colour, eerie score, and pulpy melodrama makes for a mesmerizing experience. This isn’t a film about logic; it’s about mood, obsession, and the perverse beauty of decay.

 

Deadly beauty at every turn.

In conclusion, Mill of the Stone Women is a film that feels both ancient and ahead of its time—a hypnotic Gothic curio that turns art, obsession, and death into a single swirling nightmare. It may creak under its melodrama, but it does so with operatic grandeur. In short, it’s what happens when beauty and horror decide to share a studio apartment inside a haunted windmill.

The City of the Dead (1960) – Review

If you’ve ever dreamed of taking a scenic New England vacation filled with Satanic cults, human sacrifices, and enough fog to choke a lighthouse keeper, then The City of the Dead (also known as Horror Hotel) is your dream destination. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and starring Christopher Lee in full “professor of malevolence” mode, this atmospheric little gem serves as a blueprint for the British horror boom that would haunt the 1960s. It’s spooky, stylish, and just a bit too pleased with itself—and that’s why it’s wonderful.

In 1692, the residents of Whitewood, Massachusetts, decide they’ve had quite enough of Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel), a witch who’s been cozying up with Lucifer and scaring the livestock. They burn her at the stake, which, in fairness, is the go-to colonial remedy for most problems—though in this case, Selwyn doesn’t go quietly. She curses the village and pledges eternal service to Satan, assisted by her right-hand warlock Jethrow Keane (Valentine Dyall). It’s all very cheerful stuff, complete with cackling and a promise to keep feeding the Devil fresh virgins twice a year.

 

“Nothing says ‘justice’ like a torch and some poor judgment.”

Centuries later, smug history professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee) lectures about witchcraft to a class of wide-eyed undergrads. One of them, Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson), gets so inspired by Driscoll’s talk that she decides to spend her vacation researching witchcraft in the very real—and very cursed—town of Whitewood. This is roughly equivalent to deciding to visit Camp Crystal Lake to study the local flora. Undeterred, Nan drives into the perpetual fog, checks into The Raven’s Inn, and meets its pleasant but peculiar owner, Mrs. Newless (also Patricia Jessel). Nan also befriends Patricia Russell (Betta St. John), who loans her a book on witchcraft, because nothing says “girls’ night in” like a tome bound in human skin.

 

The Necronomicon for Dummies.

When Candlemas Eve rolls around, Nan discovers that reading about witches is a lot safer than staying in a hotel run by one. Mrs. Newless reveals herself to be Elizabeth Selwyn—because witches apparently get free rebranding as part of their infernal contract—and promptly sacrifices poor Nan on a Satanic altar, fulfilling her annual quota of dead college students. It’s a grim little ritual, complete with ominous chanting and smoke machines that would make a rock band jealous. By the time the candles burn out, Nan’s academic curiosity has been rewarded with a front-row seat to her own sacrifice to Satan. Who could have seen this coming? Oh, everyone, you say?

 

This is what comes from ignoring Red Flags.

Two weeks later, Nan’s brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) and fiancé Bill Maitland (Tom Naylor) realize that something’s fishy when Nan stops answering letters and The Raven’s Inn can’t be found in any phone directory (a red flag even before Yelp). With help from Patricia and her grandfather, Reverend Russell (Norman Macowan), the group uncovers Whitewood’s dark secret. After the usual round of kidnappings, graveyard chases, and coven confrontations, Bill manages to burn Selwyn’s followers with a giant cross, proving that while evil never dies, it does have an allergy to wood. Selwyn’s corpse turns up in the ruins of the inn, looking like a roasted marshmallow of pure evil.

 

This movie has a very metal ending.

Stray Observations:

• How can people not figure out that burning people suspected of witchcraft is never a good idea? Either they’re innocent, and you’ve committed an even worse crime, or they’re actually a witch, and now they’re going to curse you and your descendants.
• Christopher Lee gives his lecture on witchcraft with the same enthusiasm he’d later bring to lecturing Peter Cushing with a sword.
• The amount of fog in this movie is staggering. It billows around every corner, and I bet its creation must have taken up half the film’s budget.
• The “Hour of Thirteen” sounds cool, but no one bothers to explain what time that actually is. 1 a.m.? Or just a spooky “whenever the plot demands”?
• If you hear chanting coming from a hidden trapdoor in the floor of your room, for the love of God, don’t investigate.
• Basically, Nan isn’t too bright. She drives to a mysterious, unlisted town where no one smiles, the innkeeper looks embalmed, and the only directions she gets are from a hitchhiker who literally vanishes. And yet, she stays.

 

Seriously, would you stop for this guy?

John Llewellyn Moxey’s direction deserves credit for making a modestly budgeted British production feel like a full-bodied Gothic nightmare. This was his feature debut, and he nails the atmosphere— with Desmond Dickinson’s cinematography giving us shadowy graveyards, flickering candlelight, and fog so thick it’s practically a supporting character. The visuals are drenched in atmosphere, giving The City of the Dead an eerie, dreamlike quality that would later influence both Night of the Living Dead and The Fog. Moxey’s pacing is deliberate, his framing tight, and his sense of place—despite shooting entirely on English sets meant to double as Massachusetts—is impressively convincing.

 

Next stop, The Twilight Zone.

The film’s pedigree is fascinating. George Baxt originally wrote the story as a pilot for a proposed Boris Karloff TV series called The Waxworks. When that fell through, it was expanded into this feature, which explains why it has a distinctly anthology feel. The dialogue is crisp but theatrical, the setup feels serialized, and the whole thing hums with that quaint, small-screen earnestness that somehow makes it even creepier. Karloff’s absence is a loss, but Christopher Lee steps in beautifully, turning Professor Driscoll into the world’s most sinister academic, like a man who assigns The Necronomicon for extra credit.

 

Seriously, don’t take travel advice from Christopher Lee.

The cast, though operating in B-movie territory, plays it straight, and that’s exactly what makes it work. Venetia Stevenson is all earnest curiosity and tragic naivety, while Patricia Jessel is pure Gothic gold, playing both the prim innkeeper and the resurrected witch with a delicious sense of menace. Betta St. John adds some much-needed humanity, and Dennis Lotis and Tom Naylor provide the sort of square-jawed, cardigan-clad heroism only 1960 could deliver.

 

“I told her that going to the Malt Shoppe would be safer.”

This film is simply brimming with all the good stuff: a witch’s curse, endless fog, a roadside harbinger, phantom hitchhikers, a creepy innkeeper and secret passageways. It all adds up to a truly terrifying story—one that might teach you not to visit ghostly, fog-shrouded towns populated by the dead. But the film’s real charm lies in how unashamedly old-fashioned it is. The City of the Dead doesn’t rely on blood or jump scares—it’s all about mood, dread, and that creeping sense that something ancient and rotten is festering beneath polite colonial manners. Its themes of faith, guilt, and corruption would echo through countless later horror films, and its twist—killing off the protagonist early—was practically revolutionary for its time.

Fun fact: The film was released before Hitchcock’s Psycho, making this one of the first to kill off its leading lady halfway through. Take that, Janet Leigh.

In conclusion, The City of the Dead is one of those underrated gems that sits quietly in the shadows of Hammer and Amicus productions but deserves far more love. It’s elegant, eerie, and occasionally unintentionally funny, a horror film that feels like an old ghost story told beside a crackling fire on a foggy night. While some of the acting creaks and the logic goes up in smoke, the film’s spell never breaks. Between Moxey’s direction, Baxt’s clever writing, and Christopher Lee’s deliciously menacing performance, this is a witchy delight that still casts a chill six decades later.

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) – Review

Walt Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is what happens when a studio famous for singing animals decides to behave like a respectable purveyor of English folklore. The result is earnest, handsomely mounted, and just a little too polite for its own good. It’s Robin Hood scrubbed clean for family viewing, which means fewer moral ambiguities and more men in tights behaving like they’ve read the employee handbook.

In 1190 England, King Richard the Lionheart summons his knights to join him on crusade, because delegating national stability to your sketchy brother has always been a winning strategy. Among those answering the call is the Earl of Huntingdon, who, in a mild panic, discovers his daughter Maid Marian (Joan Rice) is missing, only to find her in a field with Robin Fitzooth (Richard Todd), a master archer who, for all his skill, turns into a completely hopeless, love-struck schoolboy in her presence, the kind who forgets how sentences work and would probably carve her name into a tree if given five unsupervised minutes.

 

“How I love thee, let me count thy ways.”

At court, the Earl entrusts Marian to Queen Eleanor (Martita Hunt), who accepts with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for adopting a very well-behaved cat. Richard (Patrick Barr), radiating kingly confidence, instructs his brother Prince John (Hubert Gregg) to rule wisely in his absence, which is roughly equivalent to handing a pyromaniac a box of matches and asking him to water the plants. With a blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury (Anthony Eustrel), off he goes, leaving England to its inevitable downward spiral.

 

“You wouldn’t try and usurp my throne, would you?”

Predictably, the moment Richard exits stage left, John installs the Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Finch), who immediately sets about taxing peasants into misery and organizing an archery contest that doubles as a recruitment drive for state-sponsored bullying. Robin and his father, Lord Hugh Fitzooth (Richard Tate), show up, win effortlessly, and decline to join the Sheriff’s merry band of extortionists. The Sheriff responds with the subtlety of a brick, ambushing them in Sherwood Forest, murdering Hugh, and forcing Robin into outlaw life after he avenges his father and is declared a traitor.

 

He is now The Fugitive!

Robin, now upgraded to Robin Hood, gathers a band of similarly inconvenienced citizens and starts redistributing wealth with the enthusiasm of someone who has just discovered both injustice and a bow. Along the way, he rescues Stutely (Bill Owen), recruits Little John (James Robertson Justice) via a fight that ends in a dunking, and ropes in Friar Tuck (James Hayter). The Sheriff, meanwhile, continues to demonstrate that cruelty and incompetence are not mutually exclusive.

 

“I’m evil, and I’m fabulous.”

Two years later, Richard is captured and needs a ransom, which John claims he cannot pay because, apparently, all the gold he squeezed out of the peasants evaporated into thin air. Marian, now less interested in polite court life, joins Robin in the forest and helps orchestrate a plan to expose the Sheriff’s hoarded wealth. After a series of disguises, ambushes, and a castle rescue that hinges on the guards being remarkably unobservant, Robin defeats the Sheriff, survives a near-fatal encounter with a drawbridge, and is eventually rewarded when Richard returns, reveals himself dramatically, and makes everything official, including Robin’s promotion and marriage to Marian.

 

“Sorry about the whole Crusades thing, my bad.”

Stray Observations:

• Splitting an arrow in the contest is treated correctly as a tie, not an automatic victory. Somewhere, a thousand other Robin Hood movies quietly pretend they never heard that.
• Prince John’s plan to rule responsibly lasts approximately four minutes. A personal best for him.
• The Sheriff’s strategy for dealing with dissent is to escalate immediately to murder. Conflict resolution workshops were clearly not a thing in medieval England.
• Robin repeatedly disguises himself, and no one notices. Medieval people apparently had the observational skills of goldfish.
• Friar Tuck gets into a full-on brawl with Robin and immediately joins him afterward, because nothing builds trust like attempted assault.
• Shooting on location in Sherwood Forest gives the film real texture, which is nice, because half the characters are operating on pure fairy-tale logic.
• Disney, in a rare moment of restraint, avoids turning this into a musical. One can only imagine the alternate universe where Little John gets a jaunty solo.

 

“Could you imagine me as a singing bear?”

Director Ken Annakin approaches the material with a kind of brisk professionalism that suggests he knows exactly what kind of film he’s making and has no interest in overcomplicating it. The pacing is tight, the action is clear, and there’s a refreshing lack of narrative bloat. More importantly, shooting on location in actual Sherwood Forest lends the film a grounded, almost tactile quality that studio-bound versions often lack. You can practically smell the damp leaves and questionable hygiene, which is more than you can say for most Technicolor adventures of the period. That’s not to say the film doesn’t utilize classic Hollywood trickery to create the world of Robin Hood.

 

“Yonder lies the matte painting of my faddah.”

The cast is a mixed bag, though a generally engaging one. Richard Todd makes for a solid Robin, projecting decency and quiet authority rather than the flamboyant swagger of predecessors like Errol Flynn. He fills out the tights admirably, even if the film occasionally has to resort to apple boxes and creative staging to compensate for his height next to Joan Rice’s Marian. Rice, by most accounts, including Annakin’s own, struggles to bring much life to the role, which is unfortunate given how central Marian is to the story. Meanwhile, Peter Finch delivers a Sheriff of Nottingham who is properly menacing without descending into pantomime, giving the film a villain who feels like an actual threat rather than a theatrical inconvenience.

 

Peter Finch nails true villainy.

As a piece of Robin Hood mythology, the film plays it mostly straight, hitting all the expected beats while sanding off the rougher edges. It doesn’t try to reinvent the legend so much as present a clean, accessible version for family audiences. In the grand hierarchy of Robin Hood films, it inevitably lives in the long shadow of The Adventures of Robin Hood, which still sets the gold standard for energy and charisma. Disney would later revisit the legend in animated form with Robin Hood, swapping tights for anthropomorphic foxes and leaning fully into whimsy. This 1952 version sits comfortably in between, more grounded than the cartoon, but never quite as electrifying as Flynn’s swashbuckling classic.

 

Richard Todd does give it the old college try.

In the end, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a film that understands its assignment and completes it with quiet competence. It lacks the electric charm and larger-than-life bravado of the 1938 version, but it compensates with authentic English locations, elegant Technicolor photography, and a straightforward sincerity that makes it easy to enjoy. It’s the kind of movie that doesn’t demand your attention so much as politely request it, and then rewards you with a solid, well-crafted adventure. Not the king of Sherwood, but a respectable deputy who knows how to do the job without setting anything on fire.

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) – Review

Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers is a Gothic romp, a parody of Hammer-style horror that plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon trapped inside an old German Expressionist nightmare. It’s silly, stylish, sometimes aimless, and yet oddly charming, like a vampire who insists on wearing a cape to dinner but can’t find his fangs. Uneven though it is, the film manages to be both an affectionate send-up of vampire lore and a surreal comedy of errors that stakes itself somewhere between slapstick and arthouse.

Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran), a mothballed vampire scholar, drags his bumbling apprentice Alfred (Roman Polanski) into the snowy heart of Transylvania. At a village inn where the mere mention of vampires sends everyone into fits, Alfred promptly falls for Sarah Shagal (Sharon Tate), the innkeeper’s bath-loving daughter. Unfortunately, Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne)—all aristocratic menace and razor cheekbones—whisk her away before Alfred can stammer out a hello.

He just stopped in for a bite.

The innkeeper Shagal (Alfie Bass) charges after her with garlic in hand but winds up frozen and later reborn as an even sleazier vampire, proving undeath can’t fix bad habits. Abronsius and Alfred pursue Sarah to Krolock’s lavish castle, where they meet hunchbacked servant Koukol (Terry Downes) and the Count’s flamboyant son Herbert (Iain Quarrier), who develops an instant crush on Alfred. While Abronsius blunders through escape plans, mostly getting stuck in windows, Alfred finds himself dodging Herbert’s advances as Sarah prepares for the grand vampire ball. Could things get any worse?

“What do you, the viewers, think?”

The hunters sneak into the crypt, fumble the staking, and ultimately crash the undead gala in disguise. But when a mirror reveals their inconvenient reflections, the jig is up. They barely escape with Sarah in a sleigh—only for her to reveal she’s already turned. She sinks her teeth into Alfred, leaving humanity doomed at the hands of cinema’s most inept vampire hunters.

I’ll say this: I think humanity had it coming.

Stray Observations:

• Abronsius is basically Van Helsing if Van Helsing had osteoporosis and asthma. More likely to get stuck in a window than stake a vampire, he wheezes through Transylvania like a relic in need of a relic.
• Shagal proves that death is no obstacle to being a sleazy creep. As a vampire, he doubles down on the lechery—eternity just means more time to chase barmaids.
• Sarah spends half the film in or near a bathtub—truly a pioneer in cinematic hygiene. In a world of cobwebs and mildew, she’s the first horror heroine to lure vampires with bubble bath instead of blood.
• Koukol, the hunchback, seems to moonlight as both servant and snowplow. Coffins, snowdrifts, grunt work—he’s less henchman, more one-man sanitation department.
• The vampire ball is part Eyes Wide Shut, part community theatre dress rehearsal. Cloaks, waltzes, and all the menace of a church raffle—it’s undead glamour on a budget.

It’s safe to say, he’s no Tom Cruise.

Polanski directs The Fearless Vampire Killers like a man torn between making a parody and a genuine Gothic horror film. At times, the film is a meticulous recreation of Hammer Horror aesthetics—snowbound landscapes, candlelit crypts, elaborate cobwebs that could win awards for set dressing. At other moments, it feels like a parody skit stretched to feature length, with slapstick timing that borders on farce. The tonal balance is wobbly, but the sheer oddity of it keeps you glued to the screen.

“See here? This vampire is an ankle biter!”

Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography is perhaps the film’s secret weapon. The wintry exteriors look genuinely chilling, while the interiors are painted in deep reds and shadows that feel both atmospheric and knowingly over-the-top. Even when the comedy falters, the visuals retain that lush Gothic allure, as though you’re watching a vampire opera directed by Mel Brooks’ serious cousin.

“Is it time to roll credits yet?”

The cast is a patchwork of eccentric performances. Jack MacGowran plays Abronsius like a fragile wind-up toy teetering on the edge of collapse. Polanski, as Alfred, gives himself the role of the perpetual underdog, all nervous stammers and wide-eyed panic. Sharon Tate, in her breakout role, brings both innocence and sly humour to Sarah, making her more than just the stereotypical damsel. Ferdy Mayne’s Count von Krolock is pitch-perfect: aristocratic, sinister, and just amused enough to underline the parody. And of course, Iain Quarrier’s Herbert steals scenes with flamboyant menace, a queer-coded vampire prince decades ahead of his time.

“I’m dead, and fabulous!”

In conclusion, The Fearless Vampire Killers is a peculiar beast: part parody, part homage, and part Gothic dreamscape. It doesn’t always land its jokes, and its pacing occasionally stumbles, but it’s buoyed by striking visuals, eccentric characters, and Polanski’s willingness to embrace absurdity. At once a parody of the vampire genre and a stylish love letter to it, the film lingers as a cult curiosity—flawed, yes, but fearlessly memorable.