Overlooked Movies -- The Black Arrow

The Black Arrow is so overlooked and even forgotten that there's no trailer on YouTube.  It's based on Robert Louis Stevenson's book, more or less, but it's really a retelling of the Robin Hood story.  When I saw it back in the late 1940s, I hadn't read the book, but I did late pick up the Classics Illustrated version.  I suppose it was a graphic novel, but we weren't smart enough to call them that yet. 

Richard Shelton (Louis Hayward) returns home from the Wars of the Roses to find that his father's been murdered and that Sir Daniel Brackley (George McReady), his father's villainous half-brother, has taken over his father's estates.  Sir John Sedley is accused of the murder and is hiding out in the forest with his band of merry men rebels, including Judge Roy Bean Edgar Buchanan.  It should come as no suprise that Sedley has a beautiful daughter (Janet Blair) whom the nasty Sir Brackley plans to marry.  It will come as even less of a surprise that Shelton falls in love with her.  And how all this turns out will come as no surprise at all.

But when you're a kid, or a kid at heart, would you care?  Of course not. There are sword fights and mysterious black arrows and a joust.  You can't go wrong with stuff like that.