What to Stream: 'Robin and Marian' Ride Again
Robin and Marian (1976) Amazon Instant, iTunes
The Basics: A Robin Hood retelling starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn; directed by Richard Lester
If You Liked: The African Queen and The Natural
The Nugget: Decades after sparring with Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, an aging Robin Hood comes home to Sherwood seeking the Maid who got away.
The idea of Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as the swashbuckling Robin Hood and Maid Marian sounds so impossibly glamorous that it may be hard to understand why this movie is not constantly screened today. Perhaps it’s because audiences expecting the sword fighting and busting bustiers of the 1938 Errol Flynn classic were taken aback by their hero’s moody, elegiac return. Decades after his golden-age glory, a much diminished Robin (Connery) comes stumbling home, only to find that Marian (Hepburn) has taken vows and locked herself away in a nunnery. For Connery fans, the immediate post-Bond years produced the most dramatically rich work of the actor’s career, and this film is no exception, with its funny and touching portrayal of two lovers fighting against the knowledge that their moment has passed.
Photo credit: © Everett Collection
