Robin Hood movies

I have a great love of the Robin Hood story that stems from my youthful viewing of the classic Errol Flynn film THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938). For years I stayed away from most all other movie versions of the tale not wanting to dilute my memories of the dashing bad-ass in glorious Technicolor with lesser incarnations of my beloved leader of Merry Men. But in the past several years I have finally started snagging copies of various Sherwood Forest romps and have found that, although none of them surpass the 1938 film, many of them are damned good on their own. My latest discovery is the Hammer film A CHALLENGE FOR ROBIN HOOD (1967) which turns out to be quite an enjoyable piece of fun. It changes the relationships and circumstances of the story I'm familiar with in a number of ways and had me very impressed with its story construction. I liked having the characters slightly different from what I have come to expect after innumerable viewings of Flynn and his co-stars. It was very much like having an alternate history of something I know very well with enough changes made to keep me leaning forward toward the screen to see what odd, unexpected turn things were going to take next. I could carp about the fact the last third is less interesting than the first part of the film and I might wish that the swordplay was better choreographed but it is but it is still a very cool movie. I'll have to check back in with the denizen's of Sherwood again soon to see if Hammer made more good choices with this fantastic English myth. I have at least one more Robin Hood film waiting in the stacks!