Le prince des voleurs

I was much amazed and surprised to watch this Sam Katzman production, directed by the swallow Howard Bretherton, an obscure grade Z film maker, I don't even speak of his two awful and boring serials: WHO'S GUILTY and MONSTER AND THE APE, the most unbearable serial ever made, also produced by Sam Katzman and millions miles away from William Witney's ones. This colorful Robin Hood adventures is much more than I expected, far better than most moviegoers could be scared of, knowing the bad reputation of Sam Katzman for this kind of stuff. Good cheap action scenes, full of battles, fights of any kind. What could we ask for?

Jon Hall acquits himself fine in this standard "Robin Hood" story. This time he and his gang of foresters and rebels have to try and thwart the devious aspirations of the Baron "Gilbert" (H. B. Warner) and his sidekick "Sir Philip" (Lowell Gilmore) before the love of his life "Lady Marian" (Patricia Morison) is married off. It's colourful and quickly paced with plenty of swordplay (possibly not the most convincing, but still...) and Alan Mowbray also contributes well as the sagely and substantial "Friar Tuck". The ending is a bit daft (just how useless can loads of soldiers be against three men?) and you''ll probably not remember this for long afterwards, but it passes an hour or so amiably enough and I did quite enjoy it.

Totally unconvincing action scenes that border on being silly. Full of moments such as the bad guys falling over because a wall hanging almost dropped on top of them and strangely they can't get up. Nothing about this movie works. The plot is paper thin and it's hard to believe they paid money for the script. My favourite worst line being "ride you devils!" Robin to his band of not very merry men. I can't remember what happened after they rode. Not very much I think. The accents aren't English and the acting poor. No care was taken. A low bar was set and not met. Not sure why I rated this as highly as a 2.

In 1938, Warner Brothers made the most perfect version of the Robin Hood stories, "The Adventures of Robin Hood". It was an amazing picture...one of the best and most iconic of the 1930s. It also was a GORGEOUS spectacle made in full Technicolor when very few films took on the added expense of this color process. In light of how perfect the film is, it's actually VERY surprising that Columbia would make such a second-rate version of Robin Hood. It lacks the wonderful cast of the Errol Flynn version and just looks cheap...especially since they made it using Cinecolor. Why do I complain about Cinecolor? Because unlike the Technicolor of the day which used three colors to produce the full spectrum of colors, Cinecolor used two colors...an orange-red and a bluish-green. As a result, many colors simply are off and you don't get colors such as yellow, purple or green. Not having green in a Robin Hood film is a HUGE mistake!!

The story begins with some jerk trying to kill Maid Marion and her brother. Of course, Robin (Jon Hall) appears from almost no where the stops the guy with an arrow to his wrist! Ouch! Later, Robin learns that a woman is being forced to marry one of King John's kin and Robin and his men set out to rescue her. Of course this means bows and arrows, sword play and adventure.

So is this any good? It's not bad and it's a shame they just didn't re-write the script to make the characters unique and NOT Robin Hood et al. You just cannot compare the handsome but dull Jon Hall to Errol Flynn...and the same can be said of most of his merry men. As a result, it's watchable and not a bad film...but it's not a particularly great one either.

I can't say it compares to the Errol Flynn classic, but I will say it's entertaining enough and packs quite a bit into just a little over an hour. There's enough action, adventure, rescues, and intrigue to hold your attention, not to mention romance (which includes a triple wedding ceremony). The secondary love story is even better than the Robin/Marian one, and the third couple were good for some comic moments.

The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, the atmosphere is light, and you get the impression everyone had fun while making this film.

It's also inspired me to check out some more movies like this.