Genre – Crime
Movie Total Runtime – 59 Hours 05 Minutes
Spoilers – No

What in the actual…?

So, I thought I was buying a more recent BBC production which I had already seen. Turns out I bought a black and white 1950s American production.

One Hundred and Forty-Three Episodes.

Fifty-Nine Hours.

I am not watching the whole thing for the sake of this review. There is simply too much material for any sane attempt.

Instead, I will watch enough episodes to give an honest assessment of what I’ve seen.

I am saying this up front to be honest with you, and because it’s the only workable compromise between skipping it and blitzing the series like a madman.

First the video encoding is inconsistent from episode to episode. Some are too dark for easy viewing, some have severe quality issues. Some are quite sharp. The costuming looks “Good enough for the budget” since I get the impression this was not burning stacks of cash. We get chain knit sweaters for chainmail. The plot starts with the now standard “Robin returns from Crusade to find England a mess”. I don’t know when this was adopted into the folklore, but it’s newer than the stories overall. It is, however, now the orthodox form.

Roger De Lille has taken over the manor. From my layman’s knowledge of the tales, the name does not ring a bell. He’s supposedly a Norman. Since England still held Normandy at this time, I’m going to say he didn’t come over during William the Bastard’s invasion but was a more recent arrival. After all, “Robin” isn’t a Saxon name. It arrived with the Normans. But this pattern of Norman-Saxon strife continues into the first episode. It is centuries after the invasion, and England is running out of French holdings.

The handing of Locksley Manor over to Roger De Lille makes more sense than the other renditions where the hall is slighted and left in ruins. You get the advantage of continuity of government and economic activity rather than disrupting the order of things. Better to reward a loyal servant than let it fall to waste.

Our first swordfight between Robin and De Lille’s men is… of questionable choreography. But this is a made for TV adaptation from the 1950s. After the waggling of blades, Robin still hopes for redress from the Sheriff of Nottingham, but happens on to the game wardens capturing a poacher. The punishment for poaching is quite severe. As a deviation from more modern ‘stupid evil’ goons, the wardens disagree with the punishment, but are prepared to carry out their duty until Robin threatens them off. During the dialog, they indicate that Prince John is the person to talk to regarding redress of punishments in the royal forest. I am guessing this means Richard is either still fighting Saladin, or on his way to being captured by Ze Germans. Since Robin is returning from the Crusade, the Saladin Tithe has already been collected. So the next tax to be collected would be to ransom Richard back from Ze Germans. I wonder if they’ll mention that or make the taxation an ongoing matter.

One thing a lot of the historical-focused adaptations overlook is the nature of medieval taxation in England. By and large, the crown ran on revenue from its own estates – rents from vassals and tenant farmers. These are fixed rates and usually covers the expenses of the country. Tax collectors were only mustered when extraordinary one-off levies were required such as the aforementioned Saladin Tithe and to cover Richard’s Ransom from Ze Germans. Prince John, later King John, was the poor bastard left behind in England covering Richard’s expensive hobbies of Fighting the French, going Crusading, Fighting the French, getting captured by Ze Germans, and Fighting the French. When it came John’s turn to deal with the French, revenues had become so strained and the continental situation so dire that he lost all but Calais and was forced at sword point to sign the Magna Carta to reign in the collection of new taxes from the nobility.

It was John’s association with the raising of these revenues to cover Richard’s hobbies which inevitably got him tied up with the events of the Robin Hood folklore and thus got Robin the crusader stamp. The poacher tells Robin about the outlaws of Sherwood, and they part ways. The line to see the Sheriff is quite long, and Robin is unable to barge to the front. He’s finally admitted after De Lille has arrived and been able to chat up the Sheriff.

I appreciate that the Monks in the show are depicted as tonsured. It’s a stupid haircut, but it is the one they had by rule. While they didn’t have the money to bring the setting to the screen fully, and it shows in the small sets, it’s clear that they tried. They made the attempt to make it look correct.

For interfering in the King’s Justice with the game wardens, the Sheriff sentences Robin to imprisonment and the forfeiture of his estates, neatly removing the conflict in a legal sense. And Robin is guilty of all those crimes. The show doesn’t belabor the point, expecting people to grasp the difference between legal and right. Robin does present a writ from the King which makes the Sheriff take a different track. He recognizes the legal rights to get Robin to leave, then sends De Lille and Count I forget his name to make sure an accident befalls Robin. The Ambush fails, getting De Lille shot instead. He dies. Robin ends up fleeing. The outlaws also fail in ambushing Robin. Episode one wraps up with the poacher convincing Will to accept him into the band.

I notice that the arrows have a tendency to have target points when nocked and switch to broadheads on impact. Going into the second episode I’m still trying to determine if the show is episodic or serialized. Episode two has Will still as the leader of the outlaws, and Robin just starting to earn his keep. I will refrain from harping too much on the idea of peasants borrowing 2-3 Marks at this point in history. A Mark is 2/3 of a Pound. A Pound Sterling was everything a swineherd would earn in a year and then some at the time.

In an ambush by the Sheriff’s men, Will gets hit, though the bowfight choreography is no better than the swordfights. Robin gets him aid from the swineherd to whom they returned two marks taken by usury earlier. Will still dies, making me second guess whether he was meant to be Scarlet or another Will. Anyway, leadership of the outlaws gets passed to Robin.

In the third episode I finally realized that the minstrel’s song at the opening was not a theme tune, but that he was actually singing about the episode. This one mentioned Little John, who makes his first appearance in this episode. As does Marian, who as yet has not met the outlaws. Annoyingly there is another monetary mistake, which I could not let go unmentioned. The bounty on Robin was one thousand Guineas. The Guinea was introduced in 1663. The name was not applied to any coin nor quantity of regular money until after it existed. Not adjusting for inflation regarding the swineherd’s finances is one thing, but this is another entirely. However, as my biggest complaints have been regarding minutiae of monetary measures, this means the show itself is fairly well put together. It follows the folklore faithfully for the most part, having no interest in reinterpretation. The fight scenes are another weakness, but tolerable enough.

In all, it appears to be a serviceable, if not overly remarkable show.