My wife and I first saw this movie in 1976 at the Holly Theater in Medford. I loved it then and like it even more today. Last night, I was looking from some escape from the endless talk on cable TV of Obama Care and put on my copy of "Robin and Marian" from my DVD library. This is a bitter/sweet story about an aging Robin Hood and a aging Maid Marion. Robin is played by a balding Sean Connery and Marian is played by Audrey Hepburn. This was one of Hepburn's last movies. She hadn't made a movie for awhile and so it was a treat to see her back on the big screen when this movie first came out. There were lines around her eyes but she was still beautiful.This is not your Robin Hood of Errol Flynn or Kevin Costner fame.This is a story of two lovers who have been apart for 20 years while Robin has been off to the Crusades with his king, Richard the Lionheart. Robin comes home with his trusty friend, Little John, disillusioned by his king and the Crusades. Richard Harris makes a great cameo as Richard the Lionheart and Nicol Williamson is fantastic as the faithful Little John and gives real dimension to the part. There is humor in the movie such as watching Robin and Little John try and climb a castle wall to escape the Sheriff's men and showing their age.
Here is the IMDB plot summary:
A sort of tragicomedy/adventure film, "Robin and Marian" picks up the Robin Hood legend some twenty years after most versions of the story, with Robin and his sidekick Little John returning to their old Sherwood haunts world-weary from the Crusades and their sickening brutality. They're informed by former cohorts Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett that Maid Marian now lives at the nearby priory, where she has become an abbess. Marian greets Robin's return with mixed feelings, but after he rescues her from his longtime enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham, who tries to arrest her on religious grounds, the two become lovers once again
** SPOILER ALERT**
Some of the dialog in the movie breaks your heart:
Little John: Where do we go? Which way?
Robin Hood: North.
Little John: Why north?
Robin Hood: England's there. Let's go home, John
*************
Maid Marian: Let's take a look at you.
Robin Hood: [opens his shirt] Just a few bumps and bruises.
Maid Marian: [Reacting to his many scars] Oh!
[She touches them gently]
Maid Marian: So many... You had the sweetest body when you left. Hard, and not a mark. And you were mine. When you left I thought I'd die. I even tried. I walked into the woods and laid down by a stream and cut myself. Some damn fool forrester came by, took me to the abbey. So they say. No more scars, Robin. It's too much to lose you twice.
Robin Hood: I've never kissed a member of the clergy before. Would it be a sin?
*************
Maid Marian: I don't know how I look to you, but I'm not your Marian. I can't imagine living in the world again, or even for a minute wanting to. Come morning, I'm going to the Sheriff.
Robin Hood: What's the sense? Who would it serve?
Maid Marian: There's always God. You went crusading, didn't you?
Robin Hood: There are some things worth dying for.
Maid Marian: They had souls, too, the heathen that you killed. If I should die in prison-and I'd rather not, but if it comes-it's for a reason. I'll have stood for something, and I won't have taken another life to do it. What will you do now? Fight the Sheriff? More corpses? Aren't you sick of it?
Robin Hood: On the twelfth of July, 1191, the mighty fortress that was Acre fell to Richard, his one great victory in the Holy Land. He was sick in bed and never struck a blow. On the eighth of August, John and I stood outside watching while every Muslim left alive was marched out in chains. King Richard spared the rich for ransoms, took the strong for slaves, then he took the children-*all* the children-and had them chopped apart. Then he had their mothers killed. When they were all dead, three thousand bodies on the plain, he had them all opened up so their guts could be explored for gold and precious stones. Our churchmen on the scene-and there were many-took it for a triumph! One bishop put on his mitre and led us all in prayer. And you ask me if I'm sick of it.
Maid Marian: Why didn't you come home then?
Robin Hood: Bec... he was my King.
**********
Maid Marian:You never liked me much.
Little John: -You're Rob's lady.
You're Rob's lady.
If...
...you'd been mine, I never would have left you.
Maid Marion: Oh, damn you.
You've had him with you. You've had years! And I'm going to lose him.
-
************
After Robin's sword fight with the Sheriff of Nottingham with broad swords he is very injured
Maid Marian:I love you.
More than all you know.
I love you more than children.
More than fields I've planted with my hands.
I love you more than morning prayers or peace or...
...or food to eat.
I love you more than sunlight...
...more than flesh or joy...
...or one more day.
I love you...
...more than God.
Robin Hood I'd never have a day like this again, would I?
