Movie Review: Robin Hood (Disney, 1973)

“Death to tyrants!”

This is the most charming children’s movie about taxation policy ever made.

I don’t remember the first time I watched this movie; I cannot remember ever not having watched it. It’s imprinted on me as the Platonic ideal of a Robin Hood movie. It is my favorite Robin Hood movie. It is the best Robin Hood movie.

The plot is the basic Robin Hood story: Robin (fox), a dispossessed yeoman living in the forest with his buddy Little John (bear), robs the rich to feed the poor. And there are so many poor! Because Prince John (weakling lion, no mane) is demanding so much money in taxes, just for his own pleasure in counting coin, that no one can afford to eat or live. With King Richard (valiant lion, great mane) away on crusade, who will save the day?

Robin Hood, of course! And Little John. And Friar Tuck (badger). And: a family of bunnies who are friends with a nerdy turtle, a hound dog with a broken leg, some church mice, a nice retired owl couple, the fair Maid Marian (vixen), and her sassy best friend Lady Kluck (hen, more below).

The story celebrates freedom, mostly through the dashing character of Robin Hood himself, who was based on earlier iterations of the character in, for example, Errol Flynn’s 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood. He’s devil-may-care yet gentlemanly. He’s got a vaguely noble background (he grew up with Marian, so he comes from money) but sleeps rough. His hat is perfectly cocked and his manners impeccable. He’s not the first gentleman thief on screen, but he may be the furriest.

Like many Robin Hood movies (in this series of reviews, we’ll only see one exception), this story is not about true freedom from oppression, but rather about the contrast between law and justice. Prince John is the law, but he is unjust. He is undeserving of his crown—you can tell because it’s literally too big for his head. King Richard is the true law that must be restored for justice (that is, lower taxes) to return. King Richard is, one might say today, a tax-cuts populist hero respected by an elitist (Robin Hood) pretending to be a common man for just long enough to return to a wealthy lifestyle.

(The reality of the era was more complicated: King Richard may have been a valiant fighter, but he was a miserable king who spent very little time in England. King John, his little brother, was such a mediocre king that he wound up being incredibly important: it was under his disastrous reign that a barons’ revolt led to the Magna Carta.)

But, despite this film’s uncomfortable politics, it is still perfect. The good grown-ups are charming animals, like owls and foxes; the bad grown-ups are predators like wolves and crocodiles. The trumpeters are elephants! The little animals, like the bunnies, stand in for the children to whom this movie was marketed. They play at being Robin Hood, and Skippy the bunny gets to feel like one of the gang. (You can actually contrast his bravery with Prince John's infantile thumb-sucking to explore how Disney encourages kids to grow up and leave behind bad toddler habits.)

The music is lots of fun. If you’ve seen the film, I dare you not to get “Robin Hood and Little John go walking through the forest” stuck in your head. The orchestral chase music is wonderful in a Looney Tunes way. However, the romantic interlude in the forest, when Robin and Marian finally reunite, is a bit schmaltzy for my taste, and–even worse–seems to be the inspiration for a similar scene in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but we’ll get there when we get there, and it's not a good place to be.

Each of these characters is, by the standards of a children’s film, just nuanced enough, and beautifully drawn. I didn’t realize how much I loved hand-drawn animation until it began to be replaced with digital animation. The difference, not just in the visuals, but in the emotional impact is crucial to the persistence of my enjoyment of a film.

The movie is also funny! In some ways, it’s a hangout movie. It’s nice to spend time in Sherwood forest, getting to know these characters. Prince John and Sir Hiss (snake) get some great one-liners in during their buddy comedy moments. There are hilarious sight gags, like the raccoons on the chain gang: their striped prison garb matches their little bandit masks. Or Lady Kluck barreling down a field like a football player.

Me IRL.

Lady Kluck is my favorite character. Many women my age were forced at some point in their life, either through a Buzzfeed quiz (remember those?) or in-person communication to explain which Disney princess was their Disney princess. I never felt affinity for a Disney princess, but Lady Kluck is, along with Wesley Wyndam-Price and a side character from Leonora Carrington’s novel The Hearing Trumpet, the character I most identify with. She’s sassy. She’s funny. She’s a bestie. And she will absolutely destroy you if you mess with the people/animals she cares about.

As with many Disney movies from the pre-digital-animation era, there are some very dark moments, like children in prison and homes destroyed. But there are also moments that aren’t significant, overall, but are just too charming for words. Allan-a-Dale (rooster) who sings us the intro but is also a character in a film, for instance. Or the opening credits, which look like a medieval manuscript. Even the clichéd fairy-tale ending, with Robin and Marian riding away after their wedding in a coach straight out of Cinderella, seems like the movie having fun with its winks and nods.

Would I recommend this movie to someone who hasn’t seen it before? Like The Princess Bride, maybe yes, maybe no. If you can watch it with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, then please do! For a real grownup—a category to which I barely belong—it may be too juvenile.

Regardless: Four out of four Lady Klucks.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

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