Robin and Marian (1976)
So, I read a single article about this movie and I was curious, but then in several articles that I've read recently, it kept coming up. So, I decided that I have to just go ahead and watch it. So, I did.
Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn are the leads in this and they are both exceptional. I don't know if the script is that strong or if these two are just that good in the movie, but it works. Regardless, they are, in my mind, the strongest Robin and Marian since Flynn and de Havilland. There's some real chemistry there and you can feel that there is a lot of emotion and love between these characters. And given that they're both much older, we're dealing with something much different than we usually get in Robin Hood stories where we see them first falling in love.
This brings me to my next point: they make the choice to have Robin be considerably older, hence Sean Connery. He's coming back from 20 years of crusading (crusades are actually long over by this point, but hey) after the death of King Richard, who is also portrayed fairly uniquely as a monster of a man. Robin in this movie is initially sort of understated, tired of adventuring and just really happy to be back home. But, as the movie goes on, this changes.
When he initially reconnects with Will Scarlett and Friar Tuck, Will sings songs of Robin's exploits and Robin comments "we haven't done many of those things" and Will kind of shrugs it off--it's what people want to hear. All Robin seems interested in at this point is reuniting with Marian, not the adventuring and outlawry he used to engage in. But, the Sheriff of Nottingham comes to the abbey at Kirklees, where Marian is now the abbess, to arrest her because of a dispute between the newly-crowned King John and the Pope (a real thing in history). Robin, unwilling to let her go, resists in a scene that you couldn't get away with today.
After this, he rescues some of Marian's nuns who were kidnapped as a way to lure Robin to the Sheriff's castle. After some impressive exploits for such old men, they end up back in Sherwood and local farmers ask him to lead them. Robin becomes Robin Hood once more, fortified with his men and his old forest camp. This is sort of the turning point at which I think he begins to see himself as having not really gotten older. In one later scene, he almost shouts at Marian that he's still the man he was twenty years ago and he's just as able as he was then. Marian, having fully given up her life as a nun, only wishes to spend the rest of their lives together--but despite her best efforts, there won't be much more life for them to share.
The next morning, Robin challenges the sheriff to a one-on-one duel to decide the fate of his men in Sherwood. This battle initially sees Robin doing quite well, but over time, they both become weary and deal one another mortal blows. Robin, deeply wounded, but still alive, is led back to the abbey, where Marian pours them both a cup of wine. As she does, he rambles on about how he will lead the men into glorious battle again, even as he lies covered in blood in her bed. After they both drink, he realizes something is wrong--he was poisoned by her. After an impressive confession from Audrey Hepburn's Marian, he accepts his death and says "it's better this way." As in most death of Robin Hood stories, he fires an arrow out the window and tells Little John to bury him where it lands.
It's a bold choice to have the movie end with Robin's death, something none of the big blockbusters have done. I think it was a strong one, to be honest and it recasts that story in a different light. Additionally, I think one thing this movie does quite well that definitely wasn't present in the 2010 movie is humor. In the scene where Robin prevents Marian's capture, he knees a knight in the crotch and you hear the sheriff say "I told you not to get down." There's also a line where Marian asks why Robin never wrote and he says simply "I don't know how." All in all, a surprisingly strong movie.