Robin Hood - hero in tights

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Movie
German title Robin Hood - hero in tights
Original title Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Country of production USA , France
original language English
Publishing year 1993
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Mel Brooks
script JD Shapiro
Evan Chandler
production Mel Brooks
music Mel Brooks
Hummie Man
camera Michael D. O'Shea
cut Stephen E. Rivkin
occupation

Robin Hood: Heroes in Tights is a 1993 film by American director Mel Brooks , which mainly parodies Robin Hood: The King of Thieves , a 1991 film adaptation with Kevin Costner .

action

The plot of Robin Hood - Heroes in Tights is based on the medieval legend of the English hero Robin Hood , but even more on Robin Hood - King of Thieves .

Robin of Loxley is fighting alongside King Richard in the Crusades when he is captured. With the help of El Niesreiz, an oriental prince, he is able to escape from dungeon and promises to look after his son Hatschi, who is spending some time in England as an exchange student .

Prince John rose to the position of sole ruler of England during the absence of his brother, King Richards, and oppressed the people , supported by the Sheriff of Nuttingham.

When Robin comes home, his lock is being seized. From Blinzler, the blind family servant, he learns that his entire family has died during his absence. In the woods of the former family estate he meets Little John and Will, who live there as outlaws . Together with Hatschi, whom Robin saves from the prince's henchmen , they decide to defend themselves against Prince John and his helpers. To this end, they are looking all over England for willing villagers who they want to form into a powerful force.

Prince John learns of this plan and wants to set a trap for Robin, who he sees as a danger to himself. The sheriff of Nuttingham hires a killer on behalf of the prince to kill Robin in an archery competition. When Lady Marian, who has been in love with Robin since they first met, learns of the plan, she rides off to warn him. But he doesn't listen to them and takes part in the competition; Prince John's plan seems to be working.

At the last second Blinzler intercepts the arrow that was shot at Robin. But Prince John has Robin captured and wants to have him executed. Lady Marian offers an exchange: if Robin is released, she will marry the sheriff. But both the marriage and the execution are disrupted by the villagers who want to save Robin. The sheriff, on the other hand, does not want to give up on Marian so quickly and kidnaps her. Robin tries to save Marian and challenges the sheriff to the final battle. He wins this too and finds out that he also has the key to Marian's chastity belt .

When the two are about to get married, King Richard appears, who has his brother, Prince John, thrown into the Tower of London .

Allusions

On Robin Hood - King of Thieves

  • The mole that wanders through Prince John's face during the film alludes to the mole on the face of the Nottingham Sheriff (played by Alan Rickman ) and a scene in Mel Brooks' horror film parody Frankenstein Junior . According to some illustrations, the real Prince John, later King Johann Ohneland , actually had a birthmark on the right side.
  • Patrick Stewart speaks as King Richard with a heavy Scottish accent, a reference to Sean Connery's portrayal of the king in The Thief King .
  • The joke about this Robin being able to speak with an English accent is a swipe at Kevin Costner . In the German dubbing, Robin says at this point that, unlike another Robin Hood, he doesn't “costnert” the producer five million, which of course alludes to Kevin Costner's name. The French version here refers to Costner's role in Dances with Wolves . Many German voice actors who already had a role in the satirized original were cast here with the same roles. Gert Günther Hoffmann speaks King Richard, Peter Fricke the Sheriff of Nottingham and Hartmut Neugebauer Little John.

To other films

  • On The Court Jester (The Court Jester) with Danny Kaye (1955), for its part, a parody of films like especially The Adventures of Robin Hood is. The initial singing and dancing performance alludes to Danny Kaye's film, which in 1955 led the outlaws as “The Black Fox” and performed there singing and dancing several times. This fox is then personified in the animal that brings a message and at the same time serves for a play on words (see below). The figure of the murderer hired from Italy is called "Sir Giacomo" by Danny Kaye. Since the famous hero of the 18th century was called "Giacomo Casanova", the association with Don Giovanni is not far. The scene in which Robin Hood lets the knights lined up one behind the other fall over like dominoes, alludes to the scene of the accolade in "The Court Jester".
  • Mel Brooks, in his role as Rabbi, says "It's not bad to be the King" when King Richard kisses Lady Marian. This phrase appears several times in the film Mel Brooks - The Crazy History of the World in the parody of Louis XVI. in front.
  • Robert Ridgely played the hangman both here and in the Mel Brooks film The Wild Wild West .
  • The banquet scene as well as the first encounter with Little John come from Robin Hood, King of the Vagabonds with Errol Flynn , a film that Brooks had admired since childhood. The archery competition, on the other hand, quotes the 1973 Walt Disney film .
  • Mel Brooks had already acted as the author of a Robin Hood parody in 1975, namely the thirteen-part TV film When Things Were Rotten (Eng. Robi Robi Robin Hood ). The word "rotten" (rotted) was already used to corrupt the sheriff of "Rottingham" (German "Nuttingham").
  • The scene in which Don Giovanni removes the dental packing from his mouth alludes to the Francis Ford Coppola film The Godfather . Likewise, the sentence of the archer Lucas is taken from the "godfather": "We will make him an offer he cannot refuse." In the same scene, the end of the film Casablanca is quoted when Don Giovanni says to his iguana: "I believe , this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship. ”The iguana itself comes from the Marlon Brando film Freshman .
  • The boy ( Corbin Allred ) who comes running up to Robin and his companions to hide behind them from the sheriff says at the end of the scene that his brother Kevin is home alone .
  • The name of Will Scarlet O'Hara alludes to the female protagonist of the southern state drama Gone with the Wind .
  • In order to inform the villagers of Robin's arrest after the competition, his friends “fox” (modification of “ faxing ”); i.e., they send them a fox. When he starts running, he makes dolphin noises, as they could come from Flipper . The original version speaks of the 12th Century Fox , a difficult-to-translate pastiche of the film production company 20th Century Fox , which distributes this Mel Brooks film.
  • Robin names Hatschi as the new sheriff, whereupon the mob yells: “A black sheriff?” The answer is: “Why not? It worked in the wild, wild west ”- a replica of an earlier Brooks film.
  • When Robin Hood called the best men in the country together, they fell asleep over a potpourri of well-known speeches by Winston Churchill ("We fight on seas and oceans. [...] We will never surrender." - "Never before have so many had so much to thank so few. "). Hatschi shakes her up again with the words: “We did not land in the Sherwood forest. No, the forest of Sherwood has landed on us ”. Which is a modification of a speech by Malcolm X .
  • Brummdildo, Marian's lady-in-waiting, prevents any kiss between Robin and Marian until the end, analogous to Mel Brooks' film Spaceballs , in which Princess Vespa's robot lady-in-waiting sounds the alarm every time before the lovers get too close.
  • Another allusion to spaceballs can be found in the final scene of the fight between Robin and the sheriff, when Robin misses his opponent and sticks a bread roll out of the hand of one of the film team's employees. In Spaceballs, however, the employee was hit directly.

To the Middle Ages

Language and gestures

The film works linguistically, at least in the German version, hardly at all with a (pseudo) medieval language. Rather, there are different accents (in the English version), some of which are intended to indicate the social or geographical origin. In addition, the sheriff has a speech impediment that shows up by interchanging subject, object and verb.

The following accents are noticeable in the English version:

  • classic English accent (Robin Hood - with a swipe at Kevin Costner, Prince John, the Sheriff, Lady Marian; the upper class)
  • Imprecise accent (Little John; social peasant class)
  • American accent (Ahchoo, Will O'Hara, rapper of the intro)
  • German accent (Broomhilde)
  • Pseudo-Italian accent (Don Giovanni)
  • Scottish accent (King Richard - swipe at Sean Connery)

The film exaggerates the hero's actions: Robin Hood smiles a lot, makes exaggerated heroic poses and a lot of oaths. He also imitates behavior that could easily be attributed to love when it comes to dealing with Lady Marian.

  • Allusion to the feud law of the Middle Ages, when the sheriff Robin challenged to a duel, and this with his gauntlet beating.

Medieval images and clichés

Men in Tights thrives on the exaggeration of medieval images and clichés. In addition to the person of Robin Hood himself, the following images are also effective:

  • Trumpets : The sheriff has followers who imitate these trumpets while real ones are used in the competition.
  • Minne : Robin sings a song for Marian and imitates the typical Minne behavior with chaste gestures.
  • Crusade : This sets the film into the Middle Ages
  • Oppression and feudal system : The population is oppressed by Prince John, who in turn is subordinate to the king
  • Archery : Robin Hood is the best archer in the area and wants to prove it in a tournament
  • witch
  • Forest : The forest is on the one hand the hiding place of the heroes in tights, on the other hand there is a road through which there is always a certain danger for travelers. The forest in the Middle Ages is often presented as a legal vacuum.

the atmosphere

The film probably takes place in summer (no discolored trees, snow or other indications). It never rains, the sun always shines during the day. Even the night does not seem dark to the viewer. Although torches and candles are used, the interiors (for example during the meeting with Don Giovanni) and the forest never seem as dark as, for example, in the Costner version.

Jerusalem is an exception. Although it is much more southerly than Sherwood Forest, the color or daylight there is much more subdued and the weather looks gray. But the dungeon there is not gloomy either.

The use of music is only noticeable when it comes to a song.

Disregarded elements around the Robin Hood fabric

The Costner version paints a very negative picture of the Bishop of Nottingham (corruption, arbitrary persecution of "heretics" etc.), which paints a generally gloomy picture of the Church. Only Brother Tuck is the exception. This is ignored in Men in Tights. The Bishop of Rottingham (Nuttingham) turns up only for marriage and Brother Tuck has been replaced by a rabbi. Thus, the clergy is generally hidden from society.

In the Disney version there are always references to John's mother, Alienor of Aquitaine , which are missing in the Costner version, but also do not appear in the parody. The viewer does not know why Prince John is on the throne.

Furthermore, the entire medieval society is missing. The oppressed population is mentioned, but this is only for background information. The story of the crusade is also missing, which is hardly explained, so that the reason for Richard's absence is also unclear.

Modernisms / anachronisms

Although the parodic genre thrives on anachronisms, the ones that appear in Men in Tights cannot be counted. Almost every minute you can discover a modernism or anachronism. It starts with Ahchoo (Hatschi) sneakers and Blinkins (Blinkler) sunglasses, via pseudo-medieval Dixi toilets and Mark Twain to the guillotine and jockeys . There are also air missiles, kung fu inserts , a castle gate that can be operated with a remote control, a jackhammer , a fully equipped bathroom or a Hollywood-style England sign and much more.

The film also repeatedly plays with the breach of the fourth wall . There are some sequences in the film in which mistakes / accidents by the film crew are incorporated as comical elements (zooming in too close, leaving the microphone hanging, etc.). Even Robin's reference to his English accent is actually a break. Mel Brooks, who appears as a rabbi, embodies a double anachronism: on the one hand, the director becomes part of what is effectively seen on the screen, and on the other hand, such integration of a rabbi, as shown in the film, is anachronistic.

Reviews

“The adventures of Robin Hood and his journeymen in an only halfway successful genre parody. Conventional in the plot, the comical hustle and bustle of the film contains too many stale gags for the really original and witty ideas and ideas to come into their own. "

- Lexicon of international film

"Cary Elwes (" Saw ") amused as an Errol Flynn cartoon. There are good gags, but overall, the clumsy hero fool is annoying. "

- TV movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/arts/television/borscht-belt-sherwood-forest.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
  2. ↑ Robin Hood - Heroes in Tights. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Robin Hood - Heroes in Tights on tvspielfilm.de