“The Adventures of Robin Hood” and the Hollywood blacklist
The NPR program “On the Media” features a report on how the 1950s British TV series “The Adventures of Robin Hood”– popular both in the UK and the US– employed blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters writing under assumed names.
Comments
| 25 July, 2010, 6:52 pm |
There’s a 1991 movie Fellow Traveler starring Hill Street’s Daniel Travanti about blacklisted screenwriters working in England and Robin Hood.
It seemed good at the time and indeed anything containing Imogen Stubbs
has to be seen.
| 26 July, 2010, 1:29 pm |
There’s a lot of overt politics in the early ITC series: ‘William Tell’ was reinvented as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of Europe and in an early episode of ‘The Saint’ Simon Templar directly addresses the US TV audience with a speech about how being in a union is as American as apple pie.
| 26 July, 2010, 9:13 pm |
I well remember “The Adventures of Robin Hood”. At the time it seemed marvellous fun, especially Friar Tuck (Alexander Gauge) and the superb Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Wheatley, a favourite).
Michael Bentine claimed to have witnessed the recording of the theme song “Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen (sic) …” whereupon the American producer shouted “It’s ‘Rabin Hood, Rabin Hood!”
Later I really enjoyed mimicking the frequent appearances of Maid Marion (looking very sexy in her cross dressing principal boy look – but what did we know about that then? – greeting Robin as if at their local lawn tennis club; “Hello Robin!” “Hello Marion”. Ahh! Such innocence!
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