Richard Greene Rides Again as Robin Hood

Richard Greene as Robin Hood.

Sandwiched between The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954) and A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967), Hammer Films produced Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960). This action opus about the legendary English outlaw stands out for one big reason: It stars Richard Greene, famous for playing the title role in The Adventures of Robin Hood TV series. As all Robin Hood fans know, that's the one where he's "riding through glen with his band of men."

One might think that Sword of Sherwood Forest is a big screen continuation of the TV series that ran from 1955-59. However, that's not the case in terms of the storyline and the cast (with the exception of Greene and some minor players). The film features veteran actors in most of the major roles: Nigel Green (Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts) as Little John, Niall MacGinnis (Night of the Demon) as Friar Tuck, and Hammer regular Peter Cushing as the Sheriff of Nottingham. 

Peter Cushing as the Sheriff.

Screenwriter Alan Hackney wisely dispenses with the typical Robin Hood origin story. His tale has the Sheriff of Nottingham collaborating with the greedy Earl of Newark (Richard Pasco) to steal land by manipulating the court system. Maid Marian, who is the Sheriff's niece in this version, gets wind of their scheme. When her uncle won't change his evil ways, she seeks help from the Chancellor of England, who is visiting the area in his other capacity as Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Meanwhile, Robin is trying to figure out why the Sheriff killed an unknown traveler. Along the way, he happens on Marian, who has just bathed in a lake (it's a Hammer film, after all). Despite her feeble protests, there is an instant attraction between the two (although Robin is almost twice her age). But before they can get together, the Earl of Newark must be stopped before he can assassinate the Chancellor.

Hammer's most renowned director, Terrence Fisher, keeps Sword of Sherwood Forest moving briskly through its 80-minute running time. There are a plethora of outdoor scenes, perhaps in an attempt to keep production costs down. Contemporary reviews call it colorful, but, unfortunately, the print used for Mill Creek's Blu-ray disc (part of the Hammer Ultimate Collection) is a muted one. 

Sarah Branch as Marian.

Greene still has the required panache to play Robin, but, at age 41, he lacks the physicality required for the role (it's easy to spot his stunt double). Chemistry is definitely lacking between his Robin and Sarah Branch's Marian. The former model had little prior acing experience at the time and, though she tries, she seems miscast as a spunky heroine.

Peter Cushing and Richard Pasco excel as the villains. The problem is that, in a movie this short, there's only room for one villain. As a result, Cushing's Sheriff of Nottingham gets nudged into the background all too often. It's a shame to waste an actor of Cushing's caliber.

Finally, it's always fun to see who pops in British films of the 1960s. In uncredited roles, look for the following:  Desmond Llewelyn (Q in many Bond films) as the "wounded fugitive" at the beginning; Derren Nesbitt (Von Hapen in Where Eagles Dare) as Martin, one of the merry men; and Oliver Reed as Newark's henchman. I am convinced that Oliver Reed was dubbed, even though some sources contradict that claim.

Hayley Mills in The Truth About Spring

Hayley as Spring Tyler.

When naming the biggest stars of the 1960s, Hayley Mills may not spring to mind. But the young actress had a remarkable decade, starring in huge Disney hits (The Parent Trap), scoring critical raves (Whistle Down the Wind), and making future cult films (The Chalk Garden). One of my favorite Hayley pictures of this period is the seldom-shown, but highly entertaining The Truth About Spring (1965).

Hayley plays Spring Tyler, a tomboyish teenager who lives with her father Tommy (John Mills) aboard a small boat in the Florida Keys. Tommy is a sly hustler--and a very successful one. In the opening scene, he passes his daughter off as a boy dying from thirst so an ocean liner will provide enough provisions to last a week (including some juicy steaks!). 

Spring's world gets turned upside down when Tommy invites William Ashton, a handsome Princeton grad (James MacArthur), to spend a few weeks aboard the Sarah Tyler to do some fishing. There's an instant attraction between Spring and Ashton, but neither one quite knows how to handle it.

A scruffy John Mills as Tommy.

Meanwhile, Ashton quickly gets caught up in Tommy's latest scheme to recover $250,000 in gold from a sunken wreck with the help of his "partners." Tommy's pals (Niall MacGinnis and Lionel Jeffries) would just as soon murder him except that Tommy knows the location of the loot. Meanwhile, some playful frolicking between the young folks takes a serious turn when Ashton gives Spring her first kiss (and gets promptly slapped).

The Truth About Spring is a breezy lighthearted affair with John Mills having a grand time as a crafty old dodger. Excluding Hayley's appearance as a baby in So Well Remembered (1947) and John's cameo in The Parent Trap, she and her father made five movies together. They seem to be having a ball playing off each in The Truth About Spring. John gets the better role, hamming it up as Tommy and playfully threatening to marry a "good woman, clean and antiseptic" if Spring continues to defy his (questionable) parental authority. 

James MacArthur as Ashton.

The film gets a huge lift from the breathtaking locations off the Spanish coast, which double for the Caribbean. Additionally, almost every scene appears to have been shot aboard a boat or on the beach. 

Director Richard Thorpe was surely one of the most prolific filmmakers in the history of Hollywood, with over 180 credits to his name and a career that spanned the silent film era to the late 1960s. He was versatile as well, working comfortably in costume pictures (Ivanhoe and the underrated Quentin Durward), musicals (Fun in Acapulco with Elvis), and Thin Man mysteries.

If The Truth About Spring seems like a Disney film at times, it's likely because of the cast and the ultimately harmless villains. Hayley Mills, John Mills, James MacArthur, and David Tomlinson (who plays Ashton's uncle) were under Disney contracts at various times during the 1960s. John and James work together earlier on Swiss Family Robinson in which they played father and son. Incidentally, Niall MacGinnis, who plays a crook here, was a much more chilling villain as Karswell in Curse of the Demon.

Robert Stevenson's Kidnapped

James MacArthur as Stevenson's young hero.

Isn't it Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, you ask? Well, it is, of course, but today we're reviewing the Walt Disney-produced 1960 adaptation written and directed by Robert Stevenson. It was the fourth of 19 films that Stevenson made for Disney and also one of the filmmaker's best.

The oft-filmed story opens in 1751 with a young Scottish man named David Balfour (James MacArthur) journeying to the House of Shaws to present a letter to the laird from his recently-deceased father. It turns out that the miserly laird is David's Uncle Ebenezer, whom he never knew existed. When Ebenezer fails to murder David, he pays a ship's captain £20 to kidnap him and sell him as an indentured servant in the Carolinas.

Peter Finch as Alan Breck.

During a heavy fog at sea, the ship collides with a boat carrying a Scottish rebel named Alan Breck Stewart (Peter Finch). The roguish Alan makes a deal with the captain to deposit him on Scottish soil. When David warns Alan that the captain plans a doublecross, the two become allies. After a fight aboard the sailing vessel, it crashes into the rocks during a storm. David and Alan are separated, but are later reunited as David tries to get back home and Alan plots against the British who have stolen Scottish lands.

Filmed in Scotland (and in Pinewood Studios), Kidnapped surrounds the American MacArthur with a delightful cast of British veterans. Peter Finch, having appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in the previous year's The Nun's Story, makes a dashing hero who is both gentleman and rascal. It's too bad that the usually serious Finch didn't get to play more roles like this. He's perfect as the kind of hero who drunkenly asks to borrow money, gambles it away, and then chastises his benefactor for loaning him the funds.

A young Peter O'Toole.

John Laurie, Bernard Lee (later M in the Bond movies), and Niall MacGinnis (Curse of the Demon) make an impressive trio of villains. Veteran character actor Finlay Currie (Ivanhoe) steals his lone scene as a Scottish nobleman who has lost everything to the British. Even Peter O'Toole, in one of his first roles, pops up in an amusing bagpipe "duel" with Finch.

James MacArthur, the adopted son of Helen Hayes and Charles MacArthur, starred in four Disney theatrical films, starting with The Light in the Forest (1958). MacArthur projected a likable screen persona that made him one of the busiest actors of the 1960s. In 1968, he landed the part of Danny Williams on the hit TV series Hawaii Five-O (another actor, Tim O'Kelly, played Danny in the pilot). In an enjoyable interview on his website, the now-deceased MacArthur was asked to list some of his favorite actors to work with and included Finch, Currie, and Laurie.

Bernard Lee as one of the baddies.

MacArthur, Finch, and writer-director Robert Stevenson make Kidnapped one of Disney's best historical adventures. The story--while episodic--is compelling and the splendid Scottish landscapes are well integrated into the action. (I only wish that the DVD, one of the Disney Movie Club exclusives, featured a more vibrant print.) While Stevenson's later films, such as Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, were much too long, Kidnapped clocks in at a crisp 96 minutes. In fact, it could have been a wee longer. One of my few complaints is that it lacks a worthy climax and the ending seems a little rushed.

Stevenson's next film was one of Disney's biggest hits to date: The Absent-minded Professor (1961). James MacArthur followed Kidnapped with Swiss Family Robinson (1960), another Disney boxoffice success. And Peter Finch returned to serious roles, winning the BAFTA for Best Actor for The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1961).

Night of the Demon: If Hitchcock Had Made a Horror Movie...

Although made in the late 1950s, Night of the Demon (US: Curse of the Demon) owes its inspiration to producer Val Lew-ton's 1940s “B” horror films. Constrained by a low budget, Lewton knew he couldn’t afford to show a scary monster, so he made psychological thrillers like The Leopard Man in which the film’s menace was implied. One of Lewton’s directors was Jacques Tourneur, who would later helm the film noir classic Out of the Past and, of course, Night of the Demon.

According to legend, Tourneur’s original cut of Night of the Demon never showed the title creature. The producers felt it wasn’t creepy enough, though, and inserted two scenes with a gruesome two-horned, fanged demonic creature created by Wally Veevers. Whether the tale is true or not, the decision to show the demon works to the film’s advantage. The creature’s rare appearances make quite an impact and Veevers’ work is quite impressive.

The real star of the film, though, is Niall McGinnis, who plays devil cult leader Dr. Julian Karswell. At the beginning of the film, Karswell receives a visit from Professor Harrington, who has been investigating the cult. A frightened Harrington tells Karswell that he will stop the investigation and pleads with Karswell to “call it off.” Karswell notes that “some things are more easily started than stopped.” Later that night, a hideous demon kills Harrington.

John Holden (Dana Andrews), an American psychologist, and Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins), the professor’s niece, pick up the investigation. Holden, who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, pays a call on Karswell at the latter’s country estate. Karswell, sporting clown make-up, is giving a Halloween magic show for the local children. It’s my favorite scene and features such great dialogue as:

Holden: I see you practice white magic as well as black.

Karswell: I don’t think it would be too amusing for the youngsters if I conjured up a demon from Hell for them. Or for myself for that matter. As we’re not protected by the magic circle, we’d both of us be torn to shreds.

Holden: And you’d spoil the party.

Karswell: You’re so right…but how to make the point.

To do just that, Karswell summons up a wind storm (a medieval witch’s specialty, he explains later) that sends screaming children running inside the house—a scene that foreshadows a similar children’s party gone awry in Hitchcock's The Birds.

The film's most famous sequence, though, is probably Holden's late night trek through the woods. After an encounter at Karswell's country estate, Holden makes for a quick exit out the study door. Karswell politely advises him not to take the path through the woods, but the defiant Holden does just that--setting the stage for a chase very reminiscent of those in Lewton pictures like The Cat People.


A creature worth showing!

Night of the Demon was loosely based on M.R. James' short story "Casting the Runes." The witty screenplay was co-authored by Charles Bennett, who worked on early Hitchcock classics like The 39 Steps. He gives McGinnis almost all the good lines. When Karswell finds the skeptical Holden searching his study, the cult leader remarks about Joanna: “At least, she doesn’t have her head in the sand. She believes she can see. She can. She believes that she’s alive. She is. She believes that you will die tomorrow night. You will.”

Indeed, the film’s only weakness may be that Karsell is so much more interesting than Holden. It doesn’t help that Dana Andrews gives a bland performance as the disbelieving hero and the talented Peggy Cummins has very little to do. The film's second best performance is given by screen veteran Athene Seyler, who plays Karswell's mother. Their mother-son relationship is straight out of Hitchcock (who seemed to have a soft spot for his villains' mothers).

Sadly, Night of the Demon would be the last significant film for director Jacques Tourneur. He worked mostly in television in the 1960s, directing episodes of shows like Bonanza, Twilight Zone, and T.H.E. Cat. Still, his final two films weren't without interest: War Gods of the Deep (1965) was a bizarre, entertaining adventure film about an underwater city and The Comedy of Terrors was an amusing trifle written by Richard Matheson and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone.

As Tourneur's swansong in the horror genre, he couldn't have done better than Night of the Demon. I've often thought that if Hitch had made a horror film, it might have looked something like Night of the Demon. He probably would have wanted to avoid showing the title creature, too. I’d have to disagree, though, because, in close-up especially, that disagreeable demon is quite chillingly memorable.

Fighting Skeletons, Winged Harpies, and the Metallic Talos Highlight Ray Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts"

In his delightful Film Fantasy Scrapbook, Ray Harryhausen wrote: "Of the 15 fantasy features I have been connected with, Jason and the Argonauts pleases me the most." And as a long-time Harryhausen fan, I confess that it's my favorite among his incredibly imaginative works (with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad a close second).

Based on the tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece, the films opens with Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) about to launch an attack on Aristo, the king of Thessaly. On the eve of the battle, an oracle warns Pelias: "It is also foretold that although you will win the throne of Aristo, you will--when Zeus ordains--lose it to one of Aristo's children." That night, Pelias decides to take the lives of Aristo's children to prevent the prophecy. However, the baby Jason is taken to safety and Aristo's daughter Briseis seeks the protection of the goddess Hera. Despite the risk of incurring Hera's wrath, Pelias kills Briseis. A shadowy figure in the temple tells Pelias that a one-sandaled man will prove his undoing.

Todd Armstrong as Jason.

Twenty years later, while searching the countryside for Jason, Pelias falls in a river and nearly drowns. He is rescued by a young man, who emerges from the water with only one sandal. Pelias realizes immediately that Jason (Todd Armstrong) has arrived to reclaim his father's throne. However, Jason has never seen Pelias and doesn't know that he has saved--and now befriended--the man that murdered his family. Fearing Hera's wrath, Pelias knows he cannot kill Jason outright, so he suggests that the young man rally the downtrodden people of Thessaly with an inspiring act of heroism: retrieving the Golden Fleece from the edge of world.

Jason stages a competition to select the bravest, strongest (e.g., Hercules), and smartest men (e.g., Hylas) for his crew. Unfortunately, Pelias' son (Gene Raymond) joins the ranks, too, and his goal is to ensure Jason never returns. With five wishes from Hera to assist him, Jason sets sail aboard his ship the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece.

One of the two Harpies.

What I have just described is essentially a 45-minute build-up to an incredible hour of thrills and chills courtesy of Harryhausen's amazing stop-motion special effects. Jason and the Argonauts encounter the metallic god Talos, the pesky winged Harpies, Triton and the Clashing Rocks, the seven-headed hydra, and the "hydra's teeth", which sprout into an army of mean-looking skeleton warriors. Every fan has his or her favorite creature and, while the Harpies and the Hydra always amaze me, I've got to go with the skeleton warriors. Even with today's digital special effects, I cannot imagine the climactic skeleton fight looking any better.

Jason and the Argonauts was filmed in a small coastal village south of Naples. The production took two years to complete, with most of the time devoted to Harryhausen's special effects. In his Scrapbook, Harryhausen describes the skeleton sequence: "There were seven skeletons fighting three men, with each skeleton having seven appendages to move in each frame of film, this meant an unprecedented 35 animated movements had to be synchronized with three live actors' movements; so one can readily see why it took four and a half months to record the sequence for the screen."

Harryhausen notes that one of the most difficult effects to achieve was the herky-jerky movement of the giant metallic Talos. The irony is that Harryhausen spent his career trying to make his creatures move in a smooth, lifelike manner.

Aside from Harryhausen's impressive contributions, Jason and the Argonauts remains an entertaining adventure yarn. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, director Don Chaffey maintains a lively pace. Bernard Herrmann, who collaborated with Harryhausen on three other films, provides a rousing score.

As for the cast, Todd Armstrong makes a solid hero, though he's not as charismatic as Kerwin Matthews from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Niall MacGinnis (from Curse of the Demon) and Honor Blackman (Goldfinger) are fun as Zeus and Hera. The best performance, though, comes from Nigel Green, who makes a brief but memorable appearance as a very different Hercules. In contrast to Steve Reeves' portrait, Green's Hercules is a middle-aged man well aware of his celebrity, whose greed and guilt limit his involvement in Jason's quest.

Jason and the Argonauts is not "the greatest film ever made," as Tom Hanks said when awarding Ray Harryhausen a Special Oscar in 1992. But it may be the best fantasy action film and Harryhausen's marvelous creatures are a wonder to behold time and time again. In my opinion, it was the pinnacle of Harryhausen's incredible career. There were still good films to come, such as 1974's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, but nothing worthy of comparison to Jason and the Argonauts.