There's precious little merriment in Sherwood Forest in Richard Lester's Robin and Marian - a charmed and elegiac view of the Robin Hood legend that's really an essay on the theme of too-late-the-hero.
The inspiration of this underrated 1976 film, which memorably paired Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in the leads, is to consider Robin Hood in his late middle years. The legend is in less than legendary form when Robin of Locksley returns from the Crusades - a man deeply scarred by the barbarism he has witnessed and with no clear idea of what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
