Robin Hood

Release date 18th October 1922
Country : USA
Running time : 127 mins
Genre : Action/Adventure
Starring Douglas Fairbanks Snr
Screenplay by Elton Thomas (Fairbanks), Allan Dwan and Lotta Woods
Directed by Allan Dwan

King Richard goes on the Crusades leaving Prince John as regent. The king's closest friend the Earl of Huntingdon abandons the Crusade to oppose John's tyranny but finds himself outlawed so he becomes Robin Hood, an acrobatic champion of the oppressed who has a merry band of followers including Friar Tuck and Little John.

Fairbanks' handsome version isn't as good as the Errol Flynn classic but it is still very entertaining in the producer writer's fine tradition. It certainly rivals if not surpasses the later colour talkie(1938) in terms of scale and is breathtaking technically for the time.  

Doug was initially reluctant to make this film because he felt he would be dwarfed by the giant sets. Director Allan Dwan eventually persuaded him to change his mind when he described a sequence where Robin escapes two groups of knights by jumping into a velvet curtain and sliding down to the bottom. Enthused by the project Fairbanks wanted the sets to look even bigger onscreen, this was achieved by higher towers painted on glass.

..the farthest step that the silent drama has ever taken along the high road to art : Robert Sherwood

DVD available from Kino Video: