Robin Hood 1973
I remember being a kid and going to see this movie when it first came out and loving it. The Robin Hood legend is very appealing on its own, plus Disney added the very clever idea of making all of the characters different animals. I hesitated to get this movie because some people have said it isn’t Disney’s best work or that the restoration overdid the cleanup, wiping out detail and subtlety. Certainly not in the top tier of Disney animated features, it is no slouch either. The restoration is maybe overly clean, but even so you can see some of the defects from the master print, so they had to clean it up some.
The story is pretty familiar, but Disney added kind of a country element to it with some of the character voices, including George Lindsey, Andy Devine, Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney from Green Acres), and Phil Harris as Little John (who also voiced Baloo the Bear in Jungle Book), even though the Andy Griffith Show and Green Acres were off of television by that time. It seems a little jarring for some of the characters to be British and some cowboys, but a lot of those actors did other movies for Disney as well. The action can be a little cartoonish at times, but it works fine and the story moves along quickly, despite 3 pretty short songs almost back to back in the middle.
The Blu-ray I bought is the 40th anniversary edition, but has very few extras. There is an alternate ending that is storyboarded and voiced plus an extra scene involving another of Prince John’s traps to catch Robin Hood. These are interesting, but it would have been nice to hear more about the making of the movie, except that a lot of the actors have died since it was made. The movie isn’t one of the ones that rotates in and out of the vault, so it didn’t get a Diamond or Signature edition with more extras.
Written: 15 Sep 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital