The Prince of Thieves ** (1948, Jon Hall, Patricia Morison, Adele Jergens) –  Classic Movie Review 6001

Director Howard Bretherton’s 1948 Columbia Pictures’ Robin Hood film is a pleasantly acceptable adventure as a young person’s time-passer.

Jon Hall stars as a roguish Robin Hood, who ensures that the Lady Christabel (Adele Jergens) weds the Saxon noble Sir Allan Claire (Michael Duane) and not the wicked Baron Tristram (Gavin Muir). It’s not that Robin is match-making, it is that King Richard is away at the Crusades and there is crucial court intrigue in his absence. Alan Mowbray makes a lip-smacking five-course meal of Friar Tuck, Patricia Morison is a pleasing Maid Marian, Sir Allan’s sister, and Syd Saylor is genial as Will Scarlett.

Even if both the playing and script are in the deeply ordinary category, the actors are pleasant, the film’s heart is in the right place and the Cinecolor photography is a considerable help. It was the film’s main attraction – the original ad screamed ‘in CINECOLOR!’ – though ironically this has an inability to reproduce the colour green. So no Lincoln green, then, for Robin Hood! It’s a good job Richard Greene isn’t starring as Robin!

Also in the cast are H B Warner, Lowell Gilmore, Robin Raymond, Lewis L Russell, I Stanford Jolley, Belle Mitchell, Lewis L Russell, Fred Santley and Walter Sande.

It is written by Maurice Tombragel and Charles H Schneer, supposedly inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s 1872 novel Le Prince des Voleurs [The Prince of Thieves].

Jock Mahoney

It is shot by Fred H Jackman Jr, produced by Sam Katzman, scored by Mischa Bakaleinokoff and designed by Paul Palmentola, with stuntwork by stuntman Jock Mahoney, who later played Tarzan in Tarzan’s Three Challenges (1963) and Tarzan the Magnificent (1960).

It was shot reusing many of the sets left over from Columbia Pictures’ 1945 The Bandit of Sherwood Forest and at Corriganville, Ray Corrigan Ranch, Simi Valley, California. Nevertheless, instead of Katzman’s usual $140,000 micro-budget films of the era, he secured a budget of $400,000, including $100,000 for cast, and cash for the all-important colour.

‘The friar took Robin on his back.’

In the original script, the lusty Friar Tuck was over-interested in ‘worldly pleasures’ – talk about video nasties! – and the US censor insisted Tuck didn’t tuck in so much. Obviously, one of Tuck’s worldly pleasures was taking Robin on his back.

The film is one of four Columbia Pictures’ Robin Hood films: The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1945), The Prince of Thieves (1948), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950) and Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6001

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Jon Hall (February 23, 1915 – December 13, 1979).