1971 - LONG LIVE ROBIN HOOD, aka Archer of Fire

The macaroni version of the story of Robin Hood as filmed by the Italians.  It's the Robin Hood story told with a few different twists but it's still Robin Hood, I.E. he robs from the rich and gives to the poor etc.  

There's nothing particularly bad about this film.  The action is fairly decent and it's got big sets. The women are attractive in a sort of over made up 70's glamour gal kind of way.  Giuliano Gemma makes is a fairly lively Robin Hood.  American actor Mark Damon is Allan-a-Dale.  Damon is kind of an interesting character in the world of film.  He was an actor and appeared in some Roger Corman films and lots of spaghetti westerns.  He eventually moved into the world of film production and has many credits as a producer and executive producer.

 

Long Live Robin Hood has that kind of for lack of a better word "odd" feel to it.  Robin Hood is essentially an English legend but as this is an Italian film production so everything just seems a little off.  It reminds me of the Grace Kelly line to Cary Grant in Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief, "you're like an American character in an English film, you simply don't fit in."

There's a decent copy of Long Live Robin Hood on YouTube if you are so inclined and as they say, I've seen worse.

The film was written by Ennio De Concini, Mauel Torres Larreda, Giorgio Stegani and Andre Tranche^.  That 's a lot of writers for another rehash of the Robin Hood Legend. The running time is 103 minutes.

1960 - MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN, Italian Giallo Film.

 For a horror film and especially an Italian horror film Mill of the Stone Women looks very nice with colorful sets and very bright and pretty photography.   The cast has a lot of good looking women and men although the bad guy is fairly easy to spot since he gives off that mad scientist vibe fairly early in the film.

The film owes a lot and I mean a lot of its plot to the old Warner Brother's film, Mystery of the Wax Museum.  In that film people are disappearing but eventually seem to  turn up in a wax museum posed as historical figures.  Frankly I wished I had been watching that film instead of this one.

 

This film is set in a windmill that has been converted into a museum and surprise surprise missing women possibly seem to be turning up as models in this museum.

The film was directed by Giorgo Ferroni who made a lot of spaghetti and gladiator movies for most of his career.

Written by Remigio Del Grosso, Ugo Liberatore, Giorgio Stegani and Giorgio Ferroni, that's a lot of writers for a fairly ordinary horror film.  The running time is 96 minutes.