Sherwood Forester

Issue 15

December 2007

In this Issue

By now the Christmas festivities will be over and we are now swiftly moving toward 2008.  However before we ring in the New Year take some time out to read our latest edition of the online magazine.  And it's a  massive bumper edition at that.

Terrific cover image, which comes from the TV Times Christmas Extra of 1957.  Our thanks go to Morley Peters for providing the copy.

Continuing our series in which Lucy and Anna look at the story behind the series.  However, this time we are looking at the show's creator - Hannah Weinstein.

Why was The Adventures series so memorable?  What was so special about it? Anna and Lucy keep returning to this subject in their correspondence. They have decided to share their thoughts with us all.

Our "The Ladies of Sherwood" take an in-depth look at Queen Eleanor.

Introducing the Writers

Continuing our series in which Lucy and Anna look at the story behind the series.  However, this time we are looking at the show's creator - Hannah Weinstein.

Hannah Weinstein

There is a saying that legends never really die; they become successful movies or television series.  Robin Hood is a prime example of this, and in the 1950s The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene, ably attested to that.  The irony of this successful TV series is that an American woman brought a famous English outlaw to television.

Hannah Weinstein was born Hannah Dorner in New York on June 23, 1911.  In 1927 she worked as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune.  Her political career started when she joined Fiorello H. La Guardia’s New York mayoral campaign in 1937. While writing speeches for Mayor La Guardia’s campaign she met and married Peter Weinstein. She also was prominent in organizing the press side of the presidential campaigns of Franklin D. Roosevelt and in 1948, Henry Wallace.

Weinstein had three daughters, Dina, Lisa and Paula.  In 1949, when their youngest daughter Paula was four, the Weinsteins separated. 

In order to avoid the anti-communist persecution and hysteria of McCarthyism sweeping the U.S. in the early 1950s, Weinstein moved with her three daughters to Paris in 1950.  With blacklisted directors Jules Dassin and John Berry she produced a short film Fait divers à Paris with actor Yves Montand in the starring role.  Hannah tried to reconcile with her husband and traveled back and forth between Europe and the U.S. for more than a year, but the reconciliation failed.

In 1952 she established her own production company, Sapphire Films, in London.

Weinstein served as an uncredited producer of the TV series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, starring Boris Karloff. The series was in–production by Panda Productions during 1952–1954; the first three episodes of this series featured the work of the blacklisted director, Cyril Enfield (Cy Enfield).)  The Series was shown in the United States from 1954 through 1955 and in the UK from 1956 through 1957.

While in the UK, Hannah Weinstein contacted Lew Grade, an international show businesses agent, with the idea of producing a Robin Hood show. Mr. Grade was in the process of raising money to bid for a regional franchise for the launch of commercial television in the UK.  He was immediately enthusiastic, and saw the potential for selling the show to a U. S. network.

Weinstein bought a small established film studio in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey - Nettlefold Studios.  Under the Sapphire Films banner she put together a production team of Ralph Smart and Sidney Cole.  She chose an English actor who was known on both sides of the Atlantic, Richard Greene.  He agreed to play the lead role of Robin Hood and she assembled the rest of the cast.

She also bought Foxwarren estate, near Cobham in Surrey, close to the studio.  The grounds of the estate were at times used in the filming of The Adventures of Robin Hood, a castle was built on the grounds and the horses used in the series were stabled at Foxwarren.

In 1956 Weinstein met and married John Fisher.

Unknown at the time to everyone except her close circle Hannah Weinstein hired American writers who had been blacklisted and were unemployed.  Writing under pseudonyms, and with elaborate security measures to ensure that the writers true identities remained secret, high profile writers such as Ring Lardner, Jr., Ian McLellan Hunter, Waldo Salt, Adrian Scott and others, clandestinely supplied the scripts for The Adventures of Robin Hood.

The Adventures of Robin Hood was the first TV show from the UK to be successful in the U.S. There were 143, 26-minute episodes, with an average production turn-round of four and a half days per show. The Series ran from September 26, 1955 through November 12, 1960.  The success led Weinstein to create more television series, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-1957), The Buccaneers (1956), The Adventures of William Tell (1958-1959), and Sword of Freedom (1958-1960). With these exciting swordplay series, Weinstein created the television swashbuckler genre.

In 1959 Weinstein returned to the crime crusader genre with the series Four Just Men (ITV, 1959-1960).  The series could not be syndicated in the U.S., and was only syndicated by local stations.  Distributors tried to sell it around the world and had some success, but not enough to counter the lack of an American sponsor, and the bank foreclosed.  Hannah had entrusted the business deals to her husband and she concentrated on the creative side of programming. The studio’s fortunes plummeted, and because Hannah wanted to make sure all the investors got their money back, she put the studio into receivership.

In 1962 Walton came into the hands of a liquidator.  The studio lot was sold to the local Council and became Hepworth Way.  That same year Weinstein returned to America and resumed her involvement in politics.  John Fisher died in November 1963.

In 1971 she founded the Third World Cinema Corporation to produce films with members of the African-American groups.  In 1974 she produced the Oscar nominated film Claudine.  She later produced Greased Lightning (1977) with comedian Richard Pryor, and Stir Crazy (1980).

In 1982 she received the Women in Film Life Achievement Award and in 1984, was named for the Liberty Hill Award in honor of her artistic and political accomplishments.

Her daughters Lisa and Paula Weinstein followed in their mother’s footsteps.  Lisa was producer of the movie Ghost and Paula is a major executive producer of such movies as The Perfect Storm, Monster-in-Law, and Blood Diamond.  Along with her husband Mark Rosenberg they formed Spring Creek Productions.

Hannah Weinstein died of a heart attack in New York City on March 9, 1984.

Hannah Weinstein left an amazing legacy. She was a trailblazer who broke through the “glass ceiling” before anyone had heard the expression.  She was very vocal and active in the causes she championed.  Whether one agrees or disagrees with her political ideals she is to be admired for her tenacity and creativity.  She was a visionary who went with her dreams.  Her dream for the fairly new medium of television of the 1950s brought The Adventures of Robin Hood into homes around the world.  (L. C.)

Class of '55

Terrific cartoon of cast and crew by Willoughby Gray.  The style is the same as that found on Archie Duncan's get-well card, which was included in Issue 12.  Could this be the same artist?  Our grateful thanks go to Paul Connell's wife Virginia who let us have a copy of the cartoon.  Select the image to enlarge and see if you can identify some of the caricatures.

Why was The Adventures series so memorable?  What was so special about it? We keep returning to this subject in our correspondence, so we decided to share our reflections with our outlaw readers. 

Anna and Lucy                                                                     

A: Why The Adventures?  After all, there were other children’s adventure programmes in the 1950s, some of them also produced by Hannah Weinstein, and written by the same blacklisted script-writers.  But The Adventures series was somehow different - it made a bigger impact on the viewers.

L: The blacklisted writers all felt that their lives were stolen from them, just as Robin of Locksley’s life was stolen.  They considered themselves unfairly judged, as was Robin.  Robin became an outlaw and they considered themselves the same, writing under pseudonyms.  I don't think any of them would be writing scripts for a children's TV show had it not been for their circumstances. 

A: They were intelligent, well-educated, talented individuals, with knowledge of literature and history, no strangers to literary allusion, with a sense of irony and of the absurd; it all shows in their scripts.

But in the early episodes of the series there’s an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness, of frustration, of outrage and of grievance – the writers’ reaction to their experience of injustice.  The writers were deprived of work and silenced – they became outlaws.  They found themselves in a completely new situation, and had to adjust to it, and try to survive; to find ways of making a living, but also – ways of artistic expression.   As Ring Lardner Jr described it, “The situation clearly demanded a readjustment for which my background had done nothing to equip me.” (When I read it, I thought it could almost be a line of dialogue from The Adventures).

By an amazing coincidence, the actor who was chosen for the title role also had a recent personal experience of disappointment and frustration – for different reasons.   Richard Greene wasn’t blacklisted; but he was increasingly being typecast as a swashbuckling hero in action movies.  That wasn’t enough for an intelligent and sensitive actor, a thinking man who also had the “misfortune” of being extremely good-looking and athletic. 

So perhaps Richard Greene projected onto the character of Robin his own sense of dissatisfaction, of unfulfilled ambitions? 

L: From the depths of despair and frustration they gave life to a hero for all times - not a new hero, a well-known outlaw, but the magical combination of the actor who portrayed the legendary outlaw and the writers who gave him adventures and a voice was the formula for success.  A group of talented blacklisted writers were grateful to find work writing storylines for the swashbuckling adventurer who protested against corrupt rule and injustice.   A fictional hero renewed an actor's fading career, outcasts found work and a whole generation fell in love with a handsome rogue in Lincoln green, a true champion of the people.  His appeal to audiences has outlasted his rivals and this land of Robin Hood created nostalgia and an escape... I think we have unlocked the secret...

A: The series gave the blacklisted writers means of earning a living – of survival.  Yes, it was only a children’s programme, and they had to use pseudonyms, but it gave them an opportunity to tell their own story.  It also gave Richard Greene means of financial survival, until – as he probably thought – something better came along.  But, unexpectedly, it also gave him the means of artistic expression.

It seems to me that we are very close to discovering the secret of The Adventures appeal!  The series just had to be special, with so much genuine emotion and experience behind it.  The script-writers and the star of the series projected their experience onto the characters, and shared it with the viewers.  And the viewers absorbed it – that suppressed feeling of grievance and disillusionment.  But then, gradually, it changed – into a message of encouragement, and a call to action; the message that it’s not all lost yet, no matter how bad it looks; that even a seemingly hopeless situation can be turned to our advantage, and maybe even used for the benefit of others, just like Robin did as the outlaw leader;  that, in the words of the ballads, “sometimes beggars can be choosers”, and even “a serf can be defiant”.  

Extract from Girl magazine

The following article came from "Girl" Film and Television Annual No 1 from 1957.  You could have purchased it for a mere 10/6d.  Our thanks to Michael Walker for supplying the copy. 

QUEEN ELEANOR

Suzette:  In “Queen Eleanor” Robin is in a military mode – first giving his men instruction on how to crawl like a snake, and then – planning a campaign and issuing orders, until Friar Tuck admonished him, “Will you kindly stop playing at soldiers for a minute, and listen to something important?”  Robin didn’t even argue – he knew Tuck was right.  Our old soldier got carried away, and imagined he was back in the Holy Land, no doubt.  And when he’s watching the foresters fighting with the Sheriff’s men he’s smiling, but did you notice his right hand gripping the belt?  Very tense.  Doesn’t he make a convincing old soldier?  And it’s so subtle, easy to miss sometimes.

We saw the worst costume in the whole series, I think – the outfit that belonged to Prince John’s courier.  To be fair, nobody would look good in a shapeless thing like that!  Poor Tuck didn’t know what to say when Robin asked how he looked.

Also on the subject of costume, I think Robin didn’t really wear Lincoln Green that often!  The tunic in “Queen Eleanor” looked like it was leather, and so did the one with the long sleeves (in “The Wanderer”).  Maybe the one he wore in “Maid Marian” was made of Lincoln Green.  What do you think?

Marian:  “Robin is going wenching”, I loved the line that Little John used when Friar Tuck brought the news that “Marian wanted to see Robin alone and after dark”.

The outlaws had fun at Robin’s expense – especially with the bath.  The tunic he had stolen from Prince John’s courier was extremely unattractive – reminded me of the joker on a deck of cards.

Robin’s military instincts are certainly showcased in this episode; he gives you the sense that he is missing the Crusades – he seems very “caught up” in training with his men, plotting strategies.  He was definitely a brilliant warrior – the gleam in his eyes as he is able to size up a situation and the ability to react to dangerous situations…

Queen Eleanor is one of my favorite characters; she’s wise and witty.  She appears real and genuine when she tells Marian, “When you’ve had nine children - stop, it’s the tenth one that causes all the trouble”.

I felt sorry for the Queen when she realized that her trusted Bruno was a traitor – how sad to discover that someone you have put so much trust in for years is not the person you believed he was.  But even with his betrayal the Queen stopped Robin from shooting him – indeed a very compassionate person.  How difficult it must have been for Eleanor to have Richard and John for sons – one so beloved and one so evil.  It must have been terribly wrenching for her to see what John had turned into.

The Sheriff was his usual inept self – trying to fool the Queen with his “loyalty” to King Richard by contributing money – looking all smug and proud of himself.  The Queen is smart enough to see through his façade.

On the subject of Lincoln Green, I never thought much about whether Robin was wearing Lincoln Green, other than his “hose”.  I just assumed they were Lincoln Green – although the leather tunics would blend in with the forest colors.

Lady of Locksley:  I loved this episode, but - poor Robin’s outfit…  A joker in a pack of cards – yes, Marian, exactly!

Robin must have been expecting a clandestine meeting with Marian (alone) I’m sure.  To have a bath, a shave and a change of clothes his expectations must have been high for some private time with his lady love.  Even his comments to Friar Tuck to guard the door point to this, but at least he didn’t outwardly show any sorrow when he realized his Queen would also be there.  I loved the scene in the forest when he received the message to meet Marian alone after dark.  The smile on his face, the whistles of the merry men and the term “wenching” were fun.  I also loved it when he poked Little John with the arrows when he was training his “soldiers” at the beginning.

I’d never heard of a women’s brigade of soldiers back during the Crusades, not even of French women.  I wonder if that was accurate.  Perhaps I’ll go on line and take a look later.  Queen Eleanor was a much-loved Queen from all I have ever read, so I think she is correctly portrayed as such in the series.

Suzette:  Marian said that Robin was missing the Crusades when he was “playing soldiers”.  At first, it doesn’t seem to make sense – how could he have enough of it, and miss it at the same time?  But that’s exactly how many real veterans feel about it, although not all of them would admit to it.  But some do, especially nowadays, when people are encouraged to be more open about their experiences.  But it was probably always true, a universal experience - a veteran paradox.  What do they miss?  The emotional closeness between comrades in arms, the intensity of experience?  Here’s a quote from “The Road Back” by Erich Maria Remarque (best known as the author of “All Quiet on the Western Front”):  “And though you tell me a thousand times that you hate wars, yet I still say, we lived then.”

I’ve always liked those scenes when Robin is teaching the men, and tries to organise things in a military way.  And I thought, what really happened was that the outlaw band under Robin’s leadership started to resemble a resistance unit – similar to the guerilla-type bands known as partisans who operated in Central Europe during the Nazi occupation;  for example, in former Yugoslavia, where there are lots of places where they could hide in the forest and in the mountains.  I wonder if any of the writers were familiar with the stories of the partisans – WW2 was still fresh in people’s memories then.

As to Queen Eleanor, I remember reading (many years ago) that she took part in the Crusades, but I don’t recall any details. It would be worth checking if there really was a women’s fighting unit in the Holy Land.  A fascinating type, Queen Eleanor…

Marian:  I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the “Queen Eleanor” episode: I sensed that Marian and the Queen had a mother and daughter relationship.  I don’t think it was mentioned in any of the episodes of how young Marian was when her mother died.

I think that Marian emulated the Queen’s personality – regal, lady-like, proper, but with a spark, and feisty.  Great personally, with a kind, caring and soft side;  and she possessed deep feelings of love and loyalty.

Considering the times they were living in, it must have been difficult for the Queen to know whom she could put her trust in, although she seemed to be able to read people well.  I suspect that if the Queen was a contemporary of Marian’s she might perhaps be a rival for Robin Hood’s affection.  You could definitely detect the attraction and admiration she had for Robin.

A very enjoyable episode – a wonderful Queen.

The Richard Greenes and Father Christmas

Extracted from Screenland magazine of December 1947.  Images courtesy of Lucy who supplied these from her own extensive collection of vintage magazines.  Select the images to view in greater detail.

Ring Lardner Jr. - An Outcast in the Land of the Free

Tony Wait has been looking in greater detail at Ring Lardner Jr. 

Most of the readers of ‘Sherwood Forester’ are no doubt familiar with Ring Lardner Jr. (1915-2000) the blacklisted American writer whose talents were used by Hannah Weinstein on ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood.’ The main elements of his incredible biography were covered in Issue 13 of the on-line magazine. But recently I discovered a few more personal details of the man that co-wrote the ‘Coming of Robin Hood’ and many other popular episodes - details that painted a picture of the talented author, ironically experiencing some of the elements of the life of the outlaw he had written so successfully about.

In 1942 Ring Lardner Jr., known as ‘Bill’ to friends, the son of the famous humorist, was the youngest writer ever to win an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screen-Play.’ His writing career was at an all time high. But his well publicised, foolhardy testimony, to Committee Chairman J. Parnell Thomas, as one of the ‘Hollywood Ten’ (communist or leftist sympathisers) during the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s ‘witch-hunt’, caused utter controversy. When brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Ring refused, along with the others, to answer any questions under the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States of America.

After a series of appeals they were eventually found guilty of ‘contempt of Congress.’  All ten were jailed and on November 24th 1947 Ring was fined $1000 and incarcerated for 10 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. His passport was impounded; he was fired from his job at Twentieth Century Fox and was unable to work in his native land.

So this talented scriptwriter was punished for a ‘crime’ that his country constituted as a basic right! (Like freedom of choice, freedom of speech etc.) In the so-called ‘land of the free’ he became a member of the infamous ‘blacklisted’ Hollywood fraternity and after his release from prison, fled with his wife Frances, (the widow of his brother David) to live firstly in Mexico City, then New York and possibly London.

Ironically the H.U.A.A. Committee chairman J. Parnell Thomas was convicted of embezzlement in 1950 and also became an inmate at Danbury. Four years later, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy and his career in major politics was soon over. But the ‘blacklist’ was not lifted until about 1960 and only then could Ring Lardner write under his own name again.

The screenwriter and playwright Michael Eaton met Ring Lardner, during the exiled writer’s invited visit to the Amiens film festival in Northern France. Ring was guest of honour and Eaton took the opportunity to show him a ‘rough cut’ of his forthcoming TV movie, ‘Fellow Traveller’ (1989) about the effects of growing up in Hollywood under the shadow of McCarthyism.

It was during their conversation about Ring’s years of suffering as an exile during the 1950’s that the subject of Robin Hood came up. During this period he was forced to write under pseudonyms, give credit to non-black-listed members or, simply write unaccredited for American sales. Ring described to Michael Eaton how some of his ‘Robin’ scripts for the TV series were smuggled over to England in great secrecy, before he eventually found work in London. But Ring and the other ‘blacklistees’ like Abe Polonsky and Walter Bernstein, had leapt at the opportunity for, as he put it, ‘commentary–by-metaphor’ on the issues and institutions of Eisenhower America.

When ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ was aired in the USA it quickly became, of course, a huge success. Youngsters across America were soon re-enacting his tales, firing imaginary bows and arrows in their school playgrounds and tricking the cruel sheriff. One of those children was Ring’s youngest son. But,  although his eldest children had lived through - and were well aware - of their fathers unjust imprisonment and exile, Ring could not risk telling the young boy that his favourite TV show, ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ was partly created by his dad.

‘He couldn’t take the gamble that his child’s justifiable pride would not overflow and put him back in jeopardy.’ (Eaton)

I think you will agree that the domestic heartache Ring experienced as an outcast at that time brings into sharp focus the realities of challenging injustice.  And, as Michael Eaton describes it, ‘the timeless truths of Robin Hood.’

Tony Wait

That Miserable Advertisement

In 2002 a tribute article Forever Greene, written by Patrick Newley, was published in Stage magazine.  It contains the following paragraph:

“Dejected, Greene returned again to Britain and in a fit of desperation he accepted a commercial for Brylcreem which was to be shown on the new ITV channel in 1955.  Posters of him appeared all over London and he was dubbed “The Brylcreem Boy” – despite the fact he was 37 years old.  The same year he was chosen by Lew Grade to appear as the lead in the new TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood”. 

Similar statements were later repeated in other magazine articles. We do not know where the author found the above information, but we do know that it is completely untrue! 

Richard Greene did not appear in any adverts - or TV commercials – in  1955, in England or anywhere else.  It is true that it was a  time of transition in his career.  In the early 1950s he had been typecast in swashbuckling roles, and his popularity was waning.  He decided  to return to England in search of more fulfilling film and stage roles; in 1954 he said in a press interview that he had read about forty film scripts.  But he was not in such a desperate financial situation that he had to resort to advertising work.  Nor was he out of work: in 1954 he appeared in the film Contraband Spain (released in 1955), and on stage in two plays: I Capture the Castle (at the Aldwych Theatre in London), and The Secret Tent, which he also produced.   

The photographs in the Brylcreem adverts show a much younger Richard Greene – certainly not a 37-year-old.  In fact, the adverts date from as far back as the 1930s, when Richard was just beginning his acting career.  As most aspiring actors, he took various jobs when work on stage was not available – as a film extra and occasional model.

The actor Ronald Howard (who knew Richard Greene in the 1930s) wrote in his book In Search of My Father that, when Richard Greene came back to England to join the army in 1941, the Brylcreem posters could still be seen in London.  Roland Howard noticed that Richard looked different to his picture on the posters, to which Richard replied, “That was my pre-war face!”.

In 1949 an interesting article appeared in The Cinema Studio (a supplement to The Cinema magazine): Unfair to the Stars! by John S. Barrington, about inaccurate reporting and misinformation in the film press.  The author wrote this about Richard Greene: “ … I was most surprised to discover that he had not been “spotted” because he advertised a certain hair cream.  In fact, he was already in Hollywood with two pictures released before the adverts appeared in all their shiny and glistening glory! (…) He supported himself, learned the business of acting, mastered the craft and earned pin money by posing for commercial photographs – one of which, three years later, appeared all over England and  has since plagued his life and given rise to a host of incorrect conjectures and many journalistic misrepresentations.”

It should be obvious by now that Richard Greene’s Brylcreem adverts were not made in the 1950s.  Here is the final proof: an interview with Richard Greene, published in Photoplay magazine in June 1954.  Richard (clearly very annoyed), said this to the interviewer, Pip Evans:  “… how would you like something you did for a job in early life continually brought up against you to the exclusion of everything else?  Can’t you think instead of the work I’ve done in films over the past fifteen years?  Must you and everyone else go on mentioning that miserable advertisement!”

Pip Evans explained: “That advertisement (…) has hounded his career.  It loomed at him from hoardings and buses years after the time when, unknown and just eighteen, he’d modeled for the wretched thing to earn a couple of much-needed guineas.  It was so embarrassing that his bosses, Twentieth Century, tried to buy out the rights.  Nothing doing.  Greene, a star, was great advertising capital then.  So the putrid picture remained and was blazoned around to his everlasting annoyance.”

As we can see from the above, “that miserable advertisement” had been around for years when Richard Greene was offered the role of Robin Hood, and it was in the form of billboard posters (some black-and-white, some in colour), not a TV commercial.  Just to avoid any further confusion, we must mention the Wildroot Cream Oil adverts (you can see some photos in our magazine - issues 1 and 6).  That had nothing to do with Brylcreem, of course –  Wildroot was the American sponsor of The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Richard Greene, together with Bernadette O’Farrell, featured in the adverts as the stars of the series. (A. F. and L. C.)

With thanks to Chris, a collector of hairdressing memorabilia, who helped us to separate fact from fiction back in 2005.

Memorabilia

As always, we continue to be on the look-out for various collectibles.  Just one item to look at this time.  Lucy has come across the following on eBay!

The comments are from the seller's description.

VINTAGE 1950'S DREFT DETERGENT
& ROBIN HOOD DIAPER!

Attention fans and collectors of the defender of the poor, the one and only ROBIN HOOD. Here is a great pair of items from my ROBIN HOOD COLLECTION. From the 1950's it's a full box of DREFT laundry detergent with a promotion for a ROBIN HOOD DIAPER offered on the front and back including great graphics. Also included is the actual Diaper that was offered. Both items are in very good condition and show some wear but still very bright and colorful. These go back to the 1950's when Richard Greene was entertaining everyone with the ROBIN HOOD television program and the country was awash with licensed products featuring the famous bowman. A rare combination of items and a real prize in any Robin Hood collection. See the other cool Robin Hood items we have as well as lots of other great memorabilia.