Italian Robin Hood Poster

This is an Italian release poster for Walt Disney’s 1952 film Robin Hood, titled “Robin Hood e i Compagni della Foresta.” Created for the Italian market, it showcases the country’s distinctive mid-century cinema advertising style, with dramatic action, rich colour, and elegant lettering. While the film is American, the poster itself reflects the strong artistic tradition of Italian film promotion.

The Disney Method

Storyboard sketch and final scene

An enlarged sketch from Walt Disney’s continuity board illustrates both the concept and the finished scene from The Story of Robin Hood (1952), showing Richard Todd as Robin Hood and Joan Rice as Maid Marian reunited and openly expressing their love for one another.

Stephen Grimes with the Storyboard for Robin Hood

The recent article shared by Neil from The Cinema Show (1951) featured some fascinating behind-the-scenes shots from the making of Walt Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood (1952). One image showed Stephen Grimes with the film’s continuity sketches, which particularly reminded me of a passage in the book by Ken Annakin, So You Wanna Be a Director? (2001). In it, Annakin reflected that these storyboards often felt like a straitjacket, constraining his artistic creativity as a film director.

Ken Annakin with Perce Pearce

Page 52:

"The preparation for this production introduced me [Ken Annakin] to a completely new way of making movies. Actually, I never met Walt until a few weeks before shooting, but I was introduced to the Disney Method, which was to sketch out practically every move in the picture before designing the set or choosing the locations.

Walt Disney with a Storyboard

At Disney, we have found it's much more sensible and cost-efficient to invest the time and salaries of three or four artists at a drawing board-discussing, sketching and exploring the best ways of telling a story, rather than wasting time doing it on the set or location, said Perce Pearce. Key technicians and all the departments are supplied with a set of sketches, and everyone knows the director's requirements.

It sounded logical, but a little like factory-line production to me. How much room was it going to leave for ‘my’ creative input? I wondered.

When I came onto the Robin Hood production, practically all the camera angles and movements had been designed and storyboarded by Carmen Dillon and Guy Green, the cameraman!”

(So You Wanna Be A Director? by Ken Annakin (2001) Tomahawk Press

Snow in Sherwood

 

The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest rests beneath the snow, its ancient branches holding winter’s silence. Frost traces the deep lines of its bark, and the forest seems to pause around it—my spiritual place, old, watchful, and quietly alive.

Intensive Preperation

Stephen Grimes with continuity sketches

 Since I started this blog twenty years ago, Neil Vessey has regularly provided me with fantastic behind-the-scenes information and rare stills from the production of Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952). This exceptionally rare magazine article he has kindly shared with me, is truly one of the best. Featuring never-before-seen behind-the-scenes images and fascinating details, it’s an absolute must-see for all fans of this wonderful film:

“After many weeks of intensive preparation, the new Walt Disney all-action film in Technicolor, “Robin Hood”, has gone before the cameras at Denham Studios. The first shot was made on April 30.

The last two weeks before the unit went into action were a time of great activity among the double-strength set-up, which will be filming inside the studio and on location in different parts of the country.

Daily conferences were held between producer Perce Pearce, scriptwriter Laurence Watkin, art director Carmen Dillon, director Ken Annakin and lighting cameraman Guy Green, to ensure coordination on the floor.

As the first two sets-the exterior of Huntingdon Manor and the Robin Hood cave and forest encampment-took shape and colour on the Denham stages, the plasterers’ shop continued non-stop production of the many other 12th-century Nottinghamshire buildings and interiors for the story.

In the Art Department, walls covered with over a thousand continuity sketches, the works of Stephen Grimes, told the story of the film in minute detail, while enormous tables bearing scale models of the sets, made by Ivor Beddoes, illustrated with great accuracy the landscape and buildings of 12th-century England.

Art Director, Carmen Dillon

Outside the studios, Alex Bryce, directing exterior scenes, has toured the countryside with a camera unit headed by Geoffrey Unsworth, seeking suitable locations for river and forest scenes in which the film abounds.

In the pattern shop, under the supervision of Bill Evans, 12th-century utensils, furniture, carts and carved chests were turned out and mellowed under the watchful eye of historical expert, Dr. Charles Beard.

Bill Evans and Dr. Charles Beard

Hair stylist Vivienne Walker and make-up expert Stuart Freeborne gradually transformed the cast into likenesses of their historical counterparts, and members of the cast, too, were fully occupied in learning and practising the many skilled arts in which the film calls for them to be accomplished.

After months of interviews and tests, casting director Maude Spector finalised the huge cast which the vast scale of the production necessitated….

In addition to Richard Todd, Joan Rice, James Robertson Justice and James Hayter, in leading roles as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John and Friar Tuck, respectively. Hubert Gregg will play the scheming Prince John, Anthony Eustrel the Archbishop-churchman, soldier and advisor of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, played by Martitia Hunt.

Then Walt Disney has signed many other fine actors to play important featured roles: Peter Finch as the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham, Patrick Barr as Richard the Lion Heart, Anthony Forwood as handsome Will Scarlet, guitar playing Elton Hayes as the roving minstrel Allan-a-Dale, Michael Hordern as Scathelock, a persecuted farmer, Bill Owen as Stuteley, a poacher, and Hal Osmond as the celebrated Midge the Miller.

Walt Disney will arrive in England to supervise the production of “Robin Hood.”

THE CINEMA STUDIO May 1951

A New Maid Marian

Perce Pearce, Joan Rice and Richard Todd

 On February 28, 1951, the press photographed Richard Todd at the Dorchester Hotel presenting a bouquet of orchids to twenty-one-year-old Joan Rice, a long-standing theatrical tradition, as the announcement was made that they would appear together in Walt Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood. The photograph shown here captures the pivotal moment of Joan formally signing her contract to portray Maid Marian. Beside her are Richard Todd, cast as Robin Hood, and producer Percival (Perce) Pearce. Just two months later, Joan would begin filming at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire—an extraordinary turn of events for someone who, only two years earlier, had been working as a waitress.