Adventures Of Robin Hood

[billy bentley]

Hello to everyone, billy bentley here making a quick "pit stop" - it's hotter than hell in NYC right now, over the 100. I heard a terrific story today on NPR's (National Public Radio) "On The Media' show, regarding "The Adventures of Robin Hood" TV show. It was evidently the first British TV show to be a hit in the USA. It was also written by blacklisted Americans hiding out in Britain. So it was a show about Outlaws in hiding, written by outlaws in hiding ! Fascinating show. I will post what I hope is a link below, but remember I'm only a well intentioned Luddite. You may have to track it down yourselves - a worthy enterprise, for those interested. My very best to you all. billy

http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2...egments/157462

[CaptainWaggett]

There's an excellent (but elusive ) feature film on the subject - Fellow Travelller about a blacklisted writer whose Robin Hood scripts reflect his HUAC experiences with one of the Merrie Men revealed as a traitor

[billy bentley]

Evidently there is a book on the whole creative covert operation "Hide In Plain Sight" by Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner. i'm certainly going to et a copy.

[Moor Larkin]

name='billy bentley' date='25 July 2010 - 03:50 AM' timestamp='1280026215' post='455930']It was also written by blacklisted Americans hiding out in Britain.

Not exactly... It's a huge subject and has been studied a lot in recent years, but the writers were living in America. The problem seemed to be that if the scripts and credits used their names, various TV excutives might have felt awkward about employing them, or running the shows and that could have led to syndication problems, so it was kept hush hush.



Ring lardner Jr and Dalton Trumbo were two high-profile writers who made some money this way, when they were hard-pressed in the mid to late 1950's, but the only American to be in England was Hannah Weinstein and she was in no way black-listed.



I have a feeling it was more about keeping the media off the trail than anything else. it seemed to have been something of an open secret within the business. These guys were still writing for Hollywood even, but under assumed names.



You might find this interesting, to get a sense of what was going on....

It was Hearst's newspapers that played such an important role in making McCarthyism possible.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhollywood10.htm



On the other hand, directors, like Joseph Losey and Cy Endfield had to move because whilst scripts can be mailed, directors have to be on the spot....

[billy bentley]

Moor you obviously know far more than me. My only source of information being the NPR radio feature I previously mentioned.

[Gerald Lovell]

I have noticed on this and other series (e.g. WILLIAM TELL) the writing credits sometimes boast rather peculiar names, the "writers" never having done anything before or since, and so I always assumed these were pseudonyms for blacklisted writers.

[alan french]

Hi,

I am interested. A few years ago, I read somewhere, that the writers were victims of the McArthy purge in the 1950's. I now do not know whether to see this in a different light.



Alan French

[Moor Larkin]

name='alan french' date='26 July 2010 - 03:31 PM' timestamp='1280154680' post='456406'] A few years ago, I read somewhere, that the writers were victims of the McArthy purge in the 1950's. I now do not know whether to see this in a different light.

This is a good resume:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/...aturesreviews1



Weinstein also ensured that her closest associates could be trusted. She hired Sidney Cole, a film-maker of known left-wing sympathies and an executive member of the film technician's union ACCT, as programme producer. Through her friendship with Paul Robeson she was able to use the urbane New Yorker Al Rubin as a conduit between herself, Cole and the blacklisted writers working out of Los Angeles and New York. She operated on a need-to-know basis. Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson, whose first assignments as directors were on the series, probably did know who wrote their scripts, since they would have needed to change dialogue at short notice. Even so, Anderson, in an article he wrote for Sight & Sound in 1956, confined his remarks about the screenplays' provenance to the tactful comment "Many of the scripts originate in America". Marks recalls, on the other hand, that Lew Grade, the owner of ATV, was "almost certainly kept in complete ignorance of the blacklist involvement".



Hannah is something of an enigma, in that she was plainly no Communist (and I'm not convinced all of that article I referenced is factually correct), and seems to have been inherently well-off personally. She seems to have been an East Coast liberal, with no direct linkage to West Coast *Hollywood*. In her later years she moved more into *Negro Rights* issues, back in NYC. A fascinating woman. Her daughters are Hollywood producers.

[flynn]

This is a good site on TVs Robin Hood.



http://www.robinhood-tv.co.uk/

[alan french]

Hi Moor Larkin,

Thankyou very much.



Alan French.

[CaptainWaggett]

Apparently children used to have nightmares about Alan Wheatley's ironical laughter

From the archive, 13 January 1957: Is this television fit for toddlers? | News | The Observer