Robin and Marian (1976)

Directed by Richard Lester. Starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Nicol Williamson, Robert Shaw, Kenneth Haigh, Denholm Elliott, Ronnie Barker, Richard Harris, Ian Holm, Bill Maynard. [PG]

Demystified revisionist take on the outlaw folk hero finds Robin Hood (Connery) a middle-aged man still embroiled in a lengthy Crusades campaign with stubborn King Richard (Harris); when he finally returns home to Nottingham, he resumes his defiance of the sheriff (Shaw) and discovers that his lady love, Marian (Hepburn, her first film role in almost a decade), has become a nun in his absence! Intriguing twist on the beloved fictional characters gives them additional complexity and tenderness, and provides its hero with hubristic character flaws out of classic tragedy—this movie is surely more of a lament than a lark. Director Lester, who could have easily turned the whole thing into a frivolous, slapstick-heavy swashbuckler like his two Musketeers pictures from earlier that decade, supplies a grounding measure of realism and grittiness to the production, with David Watkin’s inhibited camera never allowing the sun-dappled texture to resemble the myth and magic that James Goldman’s script critiques. Only problem: these vaccinations of cold realism and melancholy make the affair something of a drag at times. Music by John Barry. Connery would later play King Richard as a cameo in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

70/100