Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue

Although not based on Sir Walter Scott's novel of the same name, I found "Rob Roy" a most entertaining effort. Splendidly acted throughout, particularly by James Robertson Justice (as the sympathetic Campbell), Michael Gough and Geoffrey Keen (two wonderful villains), and Eric Pohlmann (a truly charismatic performance – one of his best – as King George), "Rob Roy" emerges as a rousing adventure yarn with plenty of swashbuckling excitement, hair's breadth escapes, and even a bit of humor and romance. French has directed in rousing style. He has an eye for both the pictorial and dramatic possibilities of real locations. Supporting technical credits are absolutely first-class, featuring fine scenic photography and a handsomely atmospheric music score.

Obviously this was not a big enough hit to make it an attraction at Disneyland. Maybe that was down to the fact that RKO,who distributed the film,were at the time in some disarray due to the ownership of Howard Hughes.

It is a reasonably entertaining film,well photographed in Technicolour. It has to be said that Richard Todd doesn't quite make the same impact as Robert Newton did in Treasure Island.

He is supported by lots of familiar character actors, particularly Finlay Currie and Eric Pohlman.. I always find it funny when you see Scots depicted as fighting bare chested. Didnt anyone that it is freezing in Scotland and they would have died of hypothermia before reaching the battlefield.

This film is a mixed bag. It has some excellent aspects, but it does tend to drag a bit, and it is a muddle of accents. It is set in the highlands of Scotland during a very complicated time, and does not do a very good job of explaining this complicated political situation. While it probably looked vibrant when it was first put out, today it looks very muddy and boring, like they were filming at the end of February or the beginning of November. There are two parts which are quite funny, the first is when Rob is trying to ask for someone's hand in marriage and his future father-in-law is loudly playing with the reed of a bagpipe. The second is that the new German King of England George the first needed a translator and spoke in a very thick German accent, and spoke in German to highlanders who happened to understand German. It's often compared to the last film about Rob Roy they made, in the early 90s, while I have seen that film, I do not remember it very well, so I can't really compare the two. It seems to me an American imagining of the story of Scotland, and I think that most films about Scotland are American imaginings of Scottish history that they idealize. I think that's because America is a country of immigrants and while there is a civic identity of America, there isn't an ethnic American identity, so often the descendants of these immigrants tend to latch on to a sort of mythic past. It's the same thing in Canada, where I grew up, or at least during the time when I grew up. People would identify as Scottish or Highlanders, but never as the English, although everyone I grew up with was mostly a mixture of these ethnicities.

The third and last of his British made films with Richard Todd is Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue. As per a Disney family audience it's a lot more upbeat than the Nineties version of this same tale that starred Liam Neeson.

It's after the 1715 uprising and James Robertson Justice as the Duke of Argyll wants to bring peace to Scotland as he's figured out the Stuarts ain't coming back. But his aide Lord Montrose has a wholly different agenda going and it involves a special if unspecified grudge he has against the MacGregor Clan as headed by Richard Todd.

Anyway in many attempts they just can't seem to capture Todd or intimidate the MacGregors. The Earl of Montrose is played by Michael Gough and his bloodthirsty aide is played with special relish by Geoffrey Keen.

Rob Roy is not quite up to the excellence of Robin Hood and The Sword and the Rose, but Richard Todd is earnest and athletic and every inch a Scottish hero. There was definitely a special eye for the customs and mores of Eighteenth Century Scotland in the making of Rob Roy. And it holds up well after over half a century.

Walt Disney's follow-up to THE STORY OF ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRIE MEN (1952) is this similar epic about another legendary outlaw (emanating from Scotland this time around). He is once again played by Irishman Richard Todd (who has just passed away at the venerable age of 90) and the film even re-unites the actor with his three co-stars from yet another period outing from the Disney Studios, THE SWORD AND THE ROSE (1953), namely Glynis Johns, James Robertson Justice and Michael Gough. For some reason, the film is fairly maligned (awarded a measly *1/2 by the "Leonard Maltin Film Guide"!) but I rather enjoyed it, while readily admitting to be the least of Disney's three colorful adventures derived from the pages of English history. In traditional Disney fashion, the familiar events were simplified (though by no means rendered juvenile, as would often prove the case later) but there is enough sprawling action and engrossing drama – to say nothing of the beautiful scenery captured in gleaming Technicolor – to please most audiences. Similarly, characterization for this type of larger-than-life fare is pretty much standard but, given careful casting all round, it emerges as forceful rather than clichéd; besides, at a terse 81 minutes, the film has little chance of outstaying its welcome. Incidentally, I had found the flabby, oddly uninvolving and ill-cast 1995 remake (which had garnered critical praise and at least one top Oscar nod back in the day) a major disappointment on my sole viewing so far!