Adventures of Robin Hood, Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Bob Hug]

About a year and a half ago, Mill Creek Entertainment released the one and only season of the old ITC series "The Buccaneers." Now, they are releasing the first season (all 39 episodes) of one of the very first British exports to the US and Canada, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" starring Richard Greene. The street date is March 18 and the suggested retail price is $14.98, meaning that some online retailers will have this under $10. Audio/visual quality for "The Buccaneers" was quite good; hopefully, this release will be its equal. Details here:

Mill Creek Details Page

 

[Bob Gu]

Mill Creek's $14.95 titles go for $8.29 at deepdiscount and $6.65 during the 20% off sales. A great bargain for a great show.

Remember Danger Man/Secret Agent fans, Richard Greene's "Adventures Of Robin Hood" was written+directed by Ralph Smart. (He was also involved with "The Buccaneers" and "The Adventures Of William Tell".

Why is not Richard Greene on the cover box art?

Robin Hood is a very wry and fun show. And in the great theater tradtion, some of the actors play different roles in the same episode. I think I spotted Victor Woolf, who played Derwent, playing four different characters in one half-hour show.

I bought the R2 season sets from Network a while back and a couple of the episodes had French openings on the prints. So it will be interesting if Mill Creek will be using the same source prints. I also had low sound on S2 or S3 but taking out one audio jack fixed the problem.

The Network sets used original UK broadcast order, which threw some of the episodes out of continuity. From Bob Hug's link it looks like Mill Creek is using the same episode order.

For $6.65 I may rebuy this out of curiosity to see if the prints are better or worse or the same as the R2 release.

 

[Bob Hug]

Bob Gu, while I never saw the original run (1955-58), I had great memories of this show when it was broadcast on Saturdays during the early 1960s. When I first bought a DVD player, one of the first DVDs that I bought was a classic TV collection from Madacy (ugh!) that included a single episode of "Robin Hood" and I've been collecting U.S. issues of the series since then (mostly from Alpha Video, which has released 60 of 143 episodes). While most of the episodes from season 1 have been released in one form or another on U.S. DVDs, there are a handful of episodes that have not yet been released and so I'll pick this set up for that reason. I'm really hopeful that the source material used for this set will be up to the level of the material that Mill Creek used for "The Buccaneers," which I found to be surprisingly good for a so-called budget release. The only negative on that set was the brief appearance of the Mill Creek logo a couple of times during each episode. I wonder whether or not Mill Creek has some sort of U.S. licensing deal with Network. Perhaps this will pave the way for the full release of the series here and I really would like to see the abbreviated fourth season which was not broadcast in the U.S. during the late 1950s run, but showed up in the syndication package during the 1960s. I only have two episodes from that season in my collection.

Incidentally, you might be interested in a British web site dedicated to the series:

The Adventures of Robin Hood

 

[Mark Lx]

Thanks for the info and the link Bob. I'm definitely interested in seeing these. I don't remember seeing reruns of Robin Hood, but am always interested in early British television of this type. I knew it was out in R2 and am happy to see it in R1.

 

[Bob Hug]

If it wasn't for the success of "The Adventures of Robin Hood," one of the very first, if not the first British series to come to North America, we might not have had the chance to see 1960s classics like "The Avengers," "The Saint," and "Secret Agent," among others. "Robin Hood" proved that British imports could do well on American and Canadian television.

 

[Bob Gu]

Bob Hug,thanks for the site link, my memory is hazy on the night-time U.S. run, but I seem to recall that the week day reruns showed the episodes with Bernadette O'Farrell as "Maid Marion" and the Saturday morning CBS run showed the episodes with Patricia Driscoll as "Maid Marion". Could that have been the first run for Season 4 or just reruns of Season 3 or both? The original broadcast dates on the Network release for Season 4 run into 1960. So maybe there was some kind of pause/break after S3. I'll have to study the dates listed on the Network boxes a little more some time. The premiere date for the first S1 episode U.S. premiere is the same in the Brooks/Marsh book and on the Network list 9/26/55.

 

[Tory]

But why didn't we get Adam Adamant?

Would these DVDs be single or doublesided and would they be in a plastic case or cardboard envelopes?

I have not seen this series but if you all say it is good and i have this love of Robin and Britain, I think I might just try it and the Buccaneers.

 

[Bob Hug]

Bob Gu, while I'm unsure as to whether there was a gap between season 3 and 4, my understanding is that season 4 did play in the UK in primetime, but the fourth season did not play in primetime in the U.S. (not sure about Canada); however, season 4 did show up in syndication in the early 1960s. The original run was 1955-58 on CBS; I believe the U.S. premiere date was one day after the U.K. premiere date (and, again, I'm not sure about Canada). With respect to the two actresses who played "Maid Marian," Bernadette O'Farrell was cast for the first two seasons, while Patricia Driscoll was Marian for seasons 3 and 4. The other major change was the character of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Alan Wheatley was the sheriff for the first three seasons while John Arnatt took over as the deputy sheriff for the fourth season (though he may have appeared in an episode or two in season 3). So, if you don't see Alan Wheatley as the sheriff, but John Arnatt as the deputy sheriff, then you're most likely looking at a season 4 episode.

As I'm sure you're probably well aware, seasons 1-3 each had 39 episodes while season 4 was 26 episodes for a series run of 143 episodes (which makes for a healthy syndication package). Of the principal cast members, only Patricia Driscoll survives. The production company for "Robin Hood," Sapphire Films also produced many of the other costume adventure series of the late 1950s including "The Buccaneers," "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot," and "The Adventures of William Tell," among a few others. As previously mentioned, "The Buccaneers" is available from Mill Creek, while "Lancelot" has some episodes available from some public domain labels like Alpha and Critics Choice (and is available in its entirety on R2 discs from Network). The second half of "Lancelot's" single season was filmed in color and was the first British produced series to do so. I've yet to see "William Tell" show up on these shores on a commercially released DVD though, again, Network had released it in the UK. These were all childhood favorites of mine during the early 1960s and I continue to enjoy whatever episodes I can lay my hands on from these series.

 

[Bob Hug]

Tory, though I can't be certain, but based on Mill Creek releases like "The Buccaneers" and "One Step Beyond," they're likely to be on single-sided (dual layered) DVDs in a plastic case. Mill Creek usually reserves the cardboard envelopes and cases for the 12 disc (and up) sets like "The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection" and "The Best of TV Detectives," etc. For what it's worth, I reviewed "The Buccaneers" at Amazon, so if you feel so inclined, click on the link below (mine is the first review):

Amazon.com: The Buccaneers: The Complete Series: DVD: Robert Shaw,Peter Hammond,Wilfred Downing,Paul Hansard,Brian Rawlinson,Edwin Richfield,Jane Asher

 

[Tory]

You had me at Joan Sims and Sidney James from the "Carry On" movie and TV series. I will get it next time I have some money.

 

[Bob Hug]

Joan Sims is in two episodes (portraying the same character), while Sid James is in one episode; unfortunately, they're not in the same episode together. Suggest you wait for a DeepDiscount sale on this as it can be picked up very inexpensively. DD has a sale on Mill Creek titles once or twice a year (don't know exactly when), as well as the semi-annual 20% off sale in June and November. DD's current price is $8.29 shipped; with another 20% off, you can get it down to $6.63; it's very likely that "Robin Hood" will be that price or similar since both sets have the same SMRP.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

I actually bought the whole series a few years ago when Network, the company that released them in England had one of their big sales.

 

[Bob Hug]

Good grief, this set hasn't even been released yet and it can be had for $5.49 (plus shipping) . . . . .

Amazon.com: Adventures of Robin Hood - Complete First Season: Adventures of Robin Hood: Movies & TV

 

[nikkif99uk]

yeah I just ordered it from amazon although shipping to UK more expensive than the DVD its still worth it

 

[brian_hassel]

I watched the first episode last night and I'm happy to report that it did not include the appearance of the Mill Creek logo. The quality is about on par with their release of The Buccaneers. So far I am very happy with this release. $5 from Amazon for a full season of very watchable episodes. What else can you ask for?

 

[Bob Hug]

Based on watching the first eight episodes of disc 1, I'd have to say that Mill Creek's "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is a notch (or even several notches) below the audio visual quality found on Mill Creek's "The Buccaneers." Whereas "The Buccaneers" had a very nice, consistent look throughout all of the episodes, this release of "Robin Hood" seems to be a hodgepodge collection of whatever prints Mill Creek could lay its hands on. Many of the episodes are of typical public domain quality while a few look very good (the episode titled "The Challenge" comes to mind). And some of the episodes suffer the same problem as do releases from other companies like Alpha, they have the wrong end credits tacked on. That said, Mill Creek has definitely assembled an interesting collection of episodes; some of the episodes have the American titles complete with sponsor titles for products like Wildroot Creme-Oil hair tonic and Band-aids. Other episodes have the American syndicated title for the series "The Adventures in Sherwood Forest." Some of the American closings include a tag indicating "this film has been flown to the U.S. by Pan American Airways" and I even noticed a CBS eye logo at the end of one of the early episodes. I applaud the fact that Mill Creek was able to assemble all 39 episodes in a single package (the first commercially available U.S. release of the series to do so) but, while watchable, this collection simply isn't up to Mill Creek's better looking set of "The Buccaneers." Network's UK set of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" remains the definitive set for this series.

And, oh yes, I'll confirm Brian Hassel's comments above that there are no Mill Creek logos on the episodes. You can also find this 3-DVD set at Walmart for just $5.00 in their infamous bins.

 

[Pete Battista]

I blind bought this set when I found it in the Walmart Bargain Bin earlier this month. So I didn't know what to expect. It turns out that I found another series that I thoroughly enjoy. This series has a great combination of action. adventure and comedy. In just the first 4 episodes (all I watched so far) I found myself on several occasions literally laughing out loud. Unfortunately both the audio and video quality leaves a lot to be desired. Of course I don't know what the prints looked like beforehand... but it doesn't seem like they even attempted to remaster the set at all. Nonetheless I am enjoying every moment of this series... so I really hope we see the release of the remaining seasons... even if it is in the same quality as this set. Especially if it is in the same price range.