The new movie, "Robin Hood," appears this month in theaters starring Russell Crowe as Robin, Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, and Matthew Macfadgen as the Sheriff of Nottingham. It's a big-budget romance adventure, and I'll see it, because I'm a sucker for Robin Hood movies and King Arthur movies. But I don't know if it'll outdo the romance of the smaller, underappreciated 1970s film, "Robin and Marian."
In "Robin and Marian," Sean Connery plays an aging Robin who comes out of retirement to fight the Sheriff (Robert Shaw) and to reclaim his old-flame Marian (Audrey Hepburn). Two kinds of romanticism in two different scenes kind of summarize the power of this movie. In one, Connery and Shaw descend their horses, and prepare to engage each other in one-on-one sword combat. Facing each other, they draw their swords, but suddenly each one drops to one knee, and jabbing his sword into the ground in the manner of a Christian cross, says a prayer before fighting his opponent. In the other scene, the final one, a wounded and dying Connery has Hepburn at his bedside. He orders Hepburn to bring him his fabled bow and arrow. Then with his last bit of breath and strength, Robin Hood draws and shoots his arrow through the nearby open window, telling Marian to bury him wherever the arrow lands.
Many critics think, as I do, that the 1960s and '70s were the modern golden age of both movies and rock music. Or maybe those critics and I are now just cranky old goats.
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