Movie Review -    - Screen: 'Robin Hood':Animals and Birds Star in Disney Version The Program - NYTimes.com
Screen: 'Robin Hood':Animals and Birds Star in Disney Version The Program
By VINCENT CANBY
Published: November  9, 1973
Once upon a time in Sherwood Forest there lived a fox named Robin Hood who, with his good friend, a sportive brown bear named Little John, stole from the rich to give to the poor.
Nearby Nottingham was occupied by elephants, rhinos, hippos and snakes, who were the escorts, advisers and chums of the evil Prince John, a scrawny lion whose crown was too big and who, in moments of national crisis, sucked his thumb and pulled his ear lobe. Nottingham Castle was run by incompetents. Guard duty was left largely to a dim-witted vulture who liked to yell "one o'clock and all's well" when it was often three o'clock and everything was terrible.
An all-animal/bird version of Robin Hood? Good grief! But then, why not?
The legend about the bandit of Sherwood Forest has survived more than a dozen screen adaptations, including "Son of Robin Hood" (1959), which was really about a daughter, and 165 half-hour television films.
Walt Disney's multigenus, animated film version, which opened yesterday at Radio City Music Hall, testifies to the legend's elasticity and durability. It should also be a good deal of fun for toddlers whose minds have not yet shriveled into orthodoxy.
The visual style is charmingly conventional, as gently reassuring as that of a Donald Duck cartoon, sometimes as romantically pretty as an old Silly Symphony. Roger Miller, the composer ("King of the Road") and humorist, provides the voice for Allan a Dale, the rooster who acts as the film's narrator, thus giving this "Robin Hood" a decidedly odd but not unpleasant country-and-Western flavor.
The other voices are supplied by Peter Ustinov (Prince John), Terry-Thomas (Sir Hiss), Andy Devine (Friar Tuck), Phil Harris (Little John), Brian Bedford (Robin Hood) and Pat Buttram (the Sheriff of Nottingham), whose voice, like Ustinov's, is a very funny mixture of villainy and absolute fraud.
On the stage the Music Hall is presenting its annual Christmas show, including "The Nativity." It's not only that time flies, but also that the Music Hall helps rush it along.
The Program
ROBIN HOOD, an animated feature produced and directed by Wolfgang Reitherman; story by Larry Clemmons; based on character and story conceptions by Ken Anderson; songs by Roger Miller, Floyd Huddleston, George Bruns and Johnny Mercer; released by Buena Vista Company, Inc., Walt Disney Productions. At the Radio City Music Hall, Avenue of the Americas and 50th Street. Running time: 83 minutes. This film is classified G.
With the voices of Roger Miller, Brian Bedford, Monica Evans, Phil Harris, Andy Devine, Carole Shelley, Peter Ustinov, Terry-Thomas and Pat Buttram.