Robin Hood

THE SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST-1960-Robin Hood (Richard Greene; future Nayland Smith in the Chris Lee/Fu Manchu series) and his merry men protect a mysterious traveler wanted as a dangerous criminal by The Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing) who offers one merry man a pardon if he'll talk and when he does the sheriff has him killed anyway. The sheriff is after a silver medallion the traveler has. Maid Marian (Sarah Branch), a comical Friar Tuck (Niall McGuiness), Little John (Nigel Greene; another Nayland Smith) et.al are all there to help. 

Later Robin meets Lord Newark (Richard Pasco) and his band of un-merry men including the falcon loving Lord Melton (Oliver Reed). Newark wants Robin to assassinate The Archbishop of Canterbury (Jack Gwillam). When this fails, the lord and his men attack a nunnery where the bishop and Marian are hiding out. The sheriff won't go along with the plan so Melton knifes him. The finale sword battle takes place in the nunnery's church. Most of the sword play is bad especially when Marian is tossed a sword and she fights off an attack side saddled! 

There's several other story lines that don't even involve Robin giving it the feel of a condensed TV series. 

This Hammer production was filmed in Ireland by Terence Fisher (who made the much better BRIDES OF DRACULA with Cushing the same year) after the end of the original TV series that starred Richard Greene.  

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'50's Horror with Boris and Lon

THE BLACK CASTLE-1952-In Vienna, Sir Roland (Richard Greene; later the star of TV's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD) goes undercover to investigate the deaths of 2 friends he believes were killed by the evil Count Karl von Bruno (Stephen McNally), a sadistic guy with an eye patch who's very mean to his wife The Countess (Rita Corday) and keeps a live panther in his dungeon which he plans to release and hunt in the Black Forest. He's assisted by the mute and equally sadistic Gargon (Lon Chaney Jr.; also in HIGH NOON the same year). There's even a pit of alligators downstairs. John Hoyt and Michael Pate are two foppish nobles loyal to the count. Of course Roland falls in love with the abused countess. Unfortunately Boris Karloff (in his only movie appearance for the year) is wasted in the role of the count's alcoholic doctor who helps the new lovers escape the baron's clutches by giving them a drug that makes them appear to be dead (it almost works too good!).

THE BLACK CASTLE was the first feature film directed by former Oscar winning art director Nathan Juran. Some might like it's fake horror trappings but for me it just wastes the talents of Chaney and Karloff who are good in the few scenes they have. Juran later made many well known horror/Sci-Fi films of the '50's including ATTACK OF THE 5O FOOT WOMAN, THE DEADLY MANTIS and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH. He even directed Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis in HELLCATS OF THE NAVY. Later he did TV work including episodes of several Irwin Allen series.

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