A scene above from Walt Disney’s live-action film The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men 1952. The top colour scene from the film shows Richard Todd in his role as Robin Hood having escaped the clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham played by Peter Finch. Robin has just leapt from his horse onto the bank and is clambering to safety as arrows thud into the ground around him. A very exciting sequence from the film
However as we see from the still below in Black and White, the arrows are actually fired by two expert archers (James Hemmings and George Brown) brought in by the Second Unit Director, Alex Bryce who was in charge of all the exterior action scenes. He is seen in the still sitting close to the camera along with the film’s producer Perce Pearce.
It seems that a river bank set had been built alongside the River Colne in the grounds of Denham Studios so that it could be filmed showing the river flowing immediately behind Richard Todd.
It succeeded in giving us a wonderful colour shot. I reckon that this was filmed in mid summer at Denham and that would have been the summer of 1951.
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