Picture Show & Film Pictorial April 12th 1952


Geoff Waite has recently been in touch and very kindly sent in information from the magazine Picture Show & Film Pictorial dated April 12th 1952. This article shows fascinating details of the promotion of Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood and how it was received by critics after its release.
He says:
“I recently acquired a copy of the weekly magazine Picture Show & Film Pictorial for April 12 1952 which included a review of the new Disney Robin Hood film and featured Richard Todd and Joan Rice on the front cover.”



“The new releases were allocated three stars for Excellent, two for Very Good and one for Good. You will see that Robin Hood received two stars i.e. Very Good along with the James Stewart release Where the River Bends and that no three stars were awarded that week. Even Doris Day and Gordon MacRae in Starlift only succeeded in gaining one star.”


Geoff continues:
“The film is described as ‘delightful entertainment’ and that ‘Richard Todd is a lively, youthful Robin, and newcomer Joan Rice is a pretty, tomboyish Maid Marian’.


One of the advertisements featured in that particular issue of Picture Show was obviously influenced somewhat by the publicity surrounding the new Disney film although there is no mention of either Disney or Robin Hood.”

I expect some of you have recognised a very young Roger Moore in the advert that Geoff mentiones above. He of course went on to play Ivanhoe, The Saint and James Bond in his long career.  So a very big thank you to Geoff for sending me this wonderful information and giving us all an insight into how the movie was received at the time.
To read many other reviews of Walt Disney's Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men please click here.

3 comments:

Clement Glen said...

Picture Show and Film Pictorial dated April 12th 1952

Special thanks to Geoff Waite

Walt Disney's Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952)

Neil said...

I remember buying Picture Show magazine although probably slightly later than this - maybe in late 1953 onwards. It was a very informative publication and I think a weekly one which just shows how many films were released at that time. Roger Moore would have commenced his film career very shortly after this advertisement - maybe even before. Joan Rice appeared in one of his Ivanhoe episodes also. Richard Todd as we all know was at the height of his film career at this stage. Very interesting item.

Mike Giddens said...

I have this Picture show, amazing it survived all these years. some good stills from our film.