Robin and Marian (1976)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Adventure	Theatrical Trailer-3:02 Trailer-The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Rating	?
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	102:35
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Richard Lester
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Sean Connery Audrey Hepburn Robert Shaw Nicol Williamson Richard Harris Denholm Elliott Kenneth Haigh Ronnie Barker Ian Holm
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	John Barry

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I was young and at university when I first saw this film. I didn't think much of it then. Watching it now, when I'm about the age of the main characters, it means so much more, and I'm a lot more impressed with it.

    Robin and Marian is not your typical Robin Hood film, full of youthful exuberance. It's set twenty years after Robin (Sean Connery) took Little John (Nicol Williamson), and followed his king, Richard the Lionheart (Richard Harris) to the Crusades. Now Richard has gone mad, and dies in a futile way. Robin and Little John are free to return home for the first time in twenty years. They find things have changed. They happen across Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker) and Will Scarlet (Denholm Elliott), and learn that almost everyone they knew is dead or gone. Robin is in two minds about Marian (Audrey Hepburn) — he isn't sure he wants to see her. He's rather surprised when he does.

    One person who hasn't changed is the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw). Robin manages to fall afoul of him almost immediately. It's interesting to see how much affection they have for one another. There's no affection, however, between Robin and Sir Ranulf (Kenneth Haigh), who represents King John (Ian Holm) — Sir Ranulf rapidly learns about Robin's lack of respect for authority. Sir Ranulf doesn't understand, and won't listen. He is very much the kind of man who was in mind when it was said that those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

    There are some risible moments, particularly in the realisations that they are not as young as they used to be — fighting doesn't come as easily, and they get puffed. And the classic "rescue from the castle" escapade doesn't go quite as planned...

    There are moments when they dwell on the past, on what-if. This is beautifully judged by the director, not maudlin, but natural.

    This film, it is said in the trailer, was the film to lure Audrey Hepburn back to the big screen — she'd been absent for nine years. She does a marvellous job in this role, and was the perfect age for it (47) at the time. Connery was a year younger, but he could play the role even now (how does this man defy getting old?). There's chemistry between these two, and it's part of what makes this film work. The note that rings a little untrue is some of the language she uses.

    Nicol Williamson displays his typical wry humour. Robert Shaw is the other big stand-out — his Sheriff is a clever man, quite credible as a man who has held his position for twenty years by dint of being smarter than the knights and nobility he serves.

    Watch out at 50:08 — an extra is thrown against the castle wall, and it wobbles.

    This is a film about regret, about nostalgia, and about not being able to recapture one's youth. It's also about love and acceptance. If you are in your twenties, or younger, you may well enjoy this film. If you are in your forties, or older, you'll understand it. It's really quite a lovely film — recommended.

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The intended aspect ratio was 1.85:1, but we see this slight adjustment made very often; it doesn't upset the framing of anything but the opening title — unless your DVD player shows the entire image (few do), you may see some cropping of the opening title on the right.

    The image is a little soft, but clear — close-ups look nice, but long shots are somewhat fuzzy; at around 82:00, the shots of Marion are out of focus. Shadow detail is quite good. There's no low-level noise, but there is some light film grain visible at times.

    Colour is good enough — what colour variation there is could well be in the source material. There's no over-saturation or colour bleed, but at 44:59 the sky outside the window comes out white because it's too bright, and there are coloured outlines around the Sheriff.

    There are lots of film artefacts, but they are all tiny.

    There is aliasing on an assortment of objects, including swords. There's some moiré and quite a bit of light shimmer which manifests like mosquito noise. There are no other MPEG artefacts. There is haloing around foreground objects at times, but it's not overly annoying.

    There are subtitles in 19 languages, including English. I only watched the English subtitles. They are abbreviated in places, leaving out the occasional entire line, but they're timed accurately to the dialogue, and easy to read.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered. There is no layer change, but I'd say this disc could have benefited from a second layer — I'd say the feature is a bit over-compressed, and that's the reason for the background shimmer and mosquito noise.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are soundtracks in five languages, including the original English, which is the only one I listened to. The English track is a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, not surround-encoded, at 192 kbps.

    The dialogue is mostly clear, but a few words get blurred under the music. There are no signs of audio sync issues.

    The score is a John Barry effort. It is beautifully old-fashioned adventure story stuff, and perfect for the story.

    The straight stereo soundtrack makes no use of the surrounds or the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and silent, with a fuzzy picture of Connery and Hepburn.

Theatrical Trailer (3:02)

    This is a long trailer, and an interesting one — unsurprisingly, there are a few spoilers.

Trailer (1:48)

    A trailer for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Probably more notable for its Harryhausen special effects than for any other qualities.

    This film was released on DVD in Region 1 nearly a year ago, but as far as I can ascertain, the discs offer the same (lack of) features. Both discs are single layered efforts, with nothing significant in the way of extras. The Region 4 disc has more soundtracks, and more subtitles, but that's of no consequence unless you need those languages. I'd put the comparison at pretty much equal.

    Robin and Marian is a marvellous film about aging, regret, nostalgia, and love. I just wish it were a better quality DVD.

    The video quality is reasonable, but this film deserves better.

    The audio quality is perfectly adequate, but is nothing special.

    The extras are next to non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall