The Bandit of Sherwood Forest

By VARIETY STAFF

Read other reviews about this film

Powered By

Columbia. Director George Sherman, Henry Levin; Producer Leonard S. Picker, Clifford Sanforth; Screenplay Wilfrid H. Pettitt, Melvin Levy; Camera Tony Gaudio, William Snyder, George B. Meehan Jr; Editor Richard Fanti; Music Hugo Friedhofer; Art Director Stephen Goosson, Rudolph Sternad
 
Cornel Wilde
Anita Louise
Jill Esmond
Edgar Buchanan
George Macready
Henry Daniell
 

Technicolor spectacle of high adventure in Sherwood Forest. It's a costume western, in effect, offering the fictional escapades of the son of Robin Hood, a hard-riding, hard-loving hombre who uses his trusty bow and arrow to right injustice and tyranny back in the days of feudal England.

There is considerable ineptness in writing, production and direction but it still stands up as okay escapist film fare for the not-too-critical.

There is a concentration of chases and 'they-went-thata-way' flavor about the doings that hints at the western feature training of producers and directors.

Plot has the son of Robin Hood coming back to Sherwood Forest to save England's Magna Carta and young king from the cruel plotting of a wicked regent. With his long bow, sword and trusty horse, Wilde proves himself more than a match for the villain, saves the young king's life, the Magna Carta and wins true love and knighthood. Concocting the script, full of dialog cliches and ten-twent-thirt dramatics, were Wilfrid H. Pettitt and Melvin Levy, working from a story by Paul A. Castleton and Pettitt, based on the novel Son of Robin Hood by Castleton.

Wilde is properly swashbuckling as the hero, and probably had himself a time enacting the dare-and-do.

(Color) Extract of a review from 1946. Running time: 85 MIN.