Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

 

"Um... what is a non-classic movie doing on Phyl's blog??" you might be asking yourself right now. You may even be accompanying it by the look above. Well, I'll tell you. It's because I couldn't pass up writing about one of my favorite comedies for The Mel Brooks Blogathon hosted by The Cinematic Frontier in honor of Brooks 90th birthday.

"But how are you going to justify writing about it on THIS blog?" Because I'm going to talk about how it is actually quite similar to the famous 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn!!

The story of Robin Hood: Men in Tights is your basic Robin Hood tale but with a Mel Brooks twist (If you don't like Mel Brooks humor but are intrigued in this film I suggest you watch it next time it comes on TV, as several parts that may offend are removed).

The film opens with Robin of Loxley in jail. He is given a fake beard so that he blends in with the rest of the prisoner, tortured, and finally locked up. There he meets a fellow prisoner, in for jaywalking, called Asneeze, father of Ahchoo. "Bless you." "No, no, no. Ahchoo is my son. He is an exchange student."

You must go now, or you will miss the tide!

Robin helps Asneeze (and the rest of the prisoners) escape from prison with a feat of great strength, or as Asneeze puts it, "Great strength of feet!" and swims back to England. When he washes up on the beach, he is met by this impressive sight.

Robin then rents a horse and begins his journey to his family home. On his way he meets Ahchoo, who is getting beat up by the Sheriff of Rottingham's men. He helps Ahchoo, who then joins him on his journey.

Upon arriving at Loxley Hall, Robin discovers that his entire family is dead, including his goldfish Goldy, and his family home is being taken away for failure to pay back taxes. All that is left is Blinkin, the family's blind, faithful servant.

 

 

Blinkin: I thought it felt a bit drafty!

 

As they continue on their journey, now to avenge what has happened to his family, they meet Little John and Will Scarlet. But wait! Scarlet is his middle name. His full name is Will Scarlet O'Hara. "We from Georgia."

Once Robin has earned the respect of Little John, they too join his group of Merry Men. Robin then visits the castle, bursting in on a feast in practically the same way was Errol Flynn did 55 years before. It was this scene that had the most similarities with the 1938 film. It also points out a very important difference:

Robin: I'll lead the people in a revolt against you.

 

Prince John: And why should the people listen to you?

 

This of course pokes fun that Errol Flynn was not actually from England, but from Australia.

 

 

Robin also meets Maid Marion at the feast (who can't hold a candle to Olivia). Later, she comes to visit him at his camp to warn him of a "foul plot afoot." There is to be an archery contest to lure Robin out of hiding and where Dirty Ezio (who just so happens to look a lot like Clint Eastwood) will shoot him.

 

 

Robin goes to the tournament disguised as an old man - he looks like Mark Twain! - and... loses.

 

 

Robin wins, using his Patriot Arrow, and is arrested. To save him, Maid Marion promises to marry the Sheriff of Rottingham, the "most disgusting thing I can think of." But don't worry, everything works out in the end.

 

 

Mel Brooks clearly loved the original Robin Hood film when he made this one. Though not in glorious Technicolor, the film still has the feel of the original, but with Mel Brooks' signature stamp of humor.  

 

Cast:

 

Cary Elwes....................................Robin Hood

 

Richard Lewis................................Prince John

 

Roger Rees.....................Sheriff of Rottingham

 

Amy Yasbeck...............................Maid Marion

 

Mark Blankfield....................................Blinkin

 

Dave Chappelle....................................Ahchoo

 

Isaac Hayes.........................................Asneeze

 

Megan Cavanagh...........................Broomhilde

 

Eric Allan Kramer...........................Little John

 

Matthew Porretta...............Will Scarlet O'Hara

 

Tracey Ullman.......................................Latrine

 

Patrick Stewart............................King Richard

 

Dom DeLuis...............................Don Giovanni

 

Dick Van Patton...............................The Abbot

 

Robert Ridgely...........................The Hangman

 

&

 

Mel Brooks..............................Rabbi Tuckman

 

Read the other posts on Birthday Boy Brooks here!

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

 

New in October, Pt. 2: Something for Everyone

Now that we've gotten all those Woody Allen titles out of the way, what about the rest of this month's arrivals? They're actually a pretty extensive�and diverse�group and include a number of welcome returnees, some of which snuck back onto Instant in the final days of September. Among those are 1994's tear-jerking basketball doc, Hoop Dreams; arguably the best of the Merchant-Ivory productions, A Room with a View (1986); and the less well-remembered (except by avid '80s cable watchers), The Wild Geese (1978), a satisfyingly virile action yarn from director Andrew McLaglen, starring the Stallone, Statham, and Schwarzenegger of their day: Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Roger Moore.

Harris, Burton, Moore

As fun as it violent and cool-headed, The Wild Geese is filled with real men doing manly things, and doing them the way God intended�without computer effects. See all those figures parachuting down into enemy territory? Those really are guys in parachutes, jumping out of real airplanes. And the explosions? Actual on-camera fireballs. I mean, yeesh, kids today with their fancy computer-generated men and airplanes and clouds and water that's never quite convincing. We're talkin' old school here, okay? Back when stars could actually be expendable. None of this mamby-pamby digital blood, or worse, fake animals (hire a deer wrangler already!) or talking dogs, or...

Sorry, um, where was I?

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January's Lost & Found (2014)

Following last month's mass movie-title massacre, it would be easy to join the chorus of Netflix naysayers and cancel the streaming service in a noisy, indignant huff (see also: Netflix Huff). But a funny thing happened on January 1: a lot of great new and returning titles appeared, going a long way toward filling the gap left only hours earlier. Sure, it's going to be tough to make up for losing the Charlie Kaufman films or the incomparable Miller's Crossing, but this month's additions arguably go toe to toe with last month's departures.

Classic sci-fi fans may have cried foul at the loss of Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain, but in its place we got not only the director's even more classic The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), but the first of the Star Trek films, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Sure, it's not the franchise's best, but it's far from the worst, and it has the distinction of being much closer in spirit to the exploratory/philosophical nature of the original series than the flat-out action-oriented installments to come. And to those of us who saw this on its first release and thought: "Wow, look how old those guys are!" it's refreshing (and a bit painful) to now think: "Wow, look how young those guys were."

Robert Wise fans (and I know you're out there) may also get some satisfaction from the availability of West Side Story (1961), a multi-Oscar-winning musical about star-crossed lovers from the opposite side of the tracks. This should ease the loss of not only Franco Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet, but another award-winning epic about equally mismatched lovers, Titanic. Richard Beymer is no Leo, of course, but then Billy Zane's no Rita Moreno, either (thank goodness).
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