OVP: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Film: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains
Director: Michael Curtiz & William Keighley
Oscar History: 4 nods/3 wins (Best Picture, Editing*, Art Direction*, Score*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Movies can tug on the hearts of men, they can make their souls fly and their eyes weep and their dreams flutter.  Movies like Schindler's List or Sunset Boulevard or Citizen Kane are heavy, discussing the human experience in all of its depth and complexity.  We need these sorts of movies to launch important discussions & to confirm the emotions that the medium can bring, as rich as any art form.

And then there are movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood, which are about as deep as a teaspoon, but are as frothy and fluffy and delightful as ice cream in August.  I don't know how I have not seen this movie (along with Strangers on a Train which we'll be seeing for this month's "Saturdays with the Stars," this might be the most important American film that I'd never seen before), as it regularly shows up on the lists of the "Greatest Films of All Time," but boy am I glad that I finally got around to the movie.  Shot in dizzying Technicolor, the movie is cinematic magic, wry & whimsical, the perfect way to spend an afternoon for even the most jaded of film lovers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie doesn't really stray too much from what we think of as the Robin Hood legend (in many ways this is the film that most of the future Robin Hood filmic iterations is based upon), but I'll go over it briefly just for posterity.  Robin Hood (Flynn) is a Saxon nobleman loyal to Richard the Lionheart, who has been taken captive by an Austrian Duke, leaving behind his brother Prince John (Rains) to run England.  This is a problem since Prince John, as you surely must know, is terrible (side note: as a royalty buff, it's always bugged the crap out of me that the only English king to share my name is generally considered one of their worst).  He begins to fleece and hang the countryside with the aid of his ruthless righthand-man Sir Guy (Rathbone), who is smitten with King Richard's ward Lady Marian (de Havilland).  Robin Hood creates a band of merry men to stop Prince John & Sir Guy, and while he is captured, he quickly escapes in a fit of daring, and eventually brings back King Richard to throw Prince John into exile and Robin kills Sir Guy in combat.  The film ends with him getting to marry Lady Marian.

The film, as you can see from above, is relatively in-line with what we expect from the Robin Hood legend, but where Adventures sets itself apart is through the actual acting and production of the film.  Errol Flynn has never been more dashing & just impossibly sexy as Robin, a righteous do-gooder who still has a wry smile whenever he's in the presence of Lady Marian.  In real-life Flynn was a drunken scoundrel who slept with anything that moved, so it's proof of how well he could play against type here that he's honorable, noble, but giving off the sort of energy that he's clearly well-funded in his codpiece.  Rains is also so good even if this is also a bit of type-casting for the actor, who seems to always play erudite villains.  De Havilland makes the most of a role that could easily have just been no lines and just said "look beautiful," making her Marian true & actually landing her bigger scenes in a way that would recall her momentous work the following year in Gone with the Wind.  Overall, for an action-adventure the acting is a treat, and it enhanced the careers of pretty much everyone on set.  Even de Havilland's palomino, named Golden Cloud, got work as a result of this picture-the horse was seen by Roy Rogers, who loved it, purchased it, and renamed it Trigger...the rest is western history.

But it's the production value that makes this a classic.  The costuming is divine-de Havilland has never looked more radiant (and considering how long she was in pictures, this is saying something).  The movie didn't win an Oscar nomination for the category (because the category didn't exist yet, it certainly would have otherwise), but it did nab trophies for editing, art direction, and score, all of which were well-earned.  The editing is splendid-the action sequences are incredible, and while the stunts are in hindsight an OSHA nightmare (legend has it that men were paid $150 for actual arrows to be shot at their chest, a risky move in case, you know, the arrow moved north & missed the target), the scenes are riveting.  The moment where Flynn's Robin jumps from a noose onto a horse is staggering, and this ranks as one of the best action-adventures I've had the privilege of seeing, with the sharp editing a main culprit.  The art direction is sublime, especially in gaudy Technicolor, and the score is legend.  Erich Wolfgang Korngold thought the movie beneath him, but wanting an operatic score for the picture, Warner Brothers chief Hal Wallis allowed Korngold a weekly contract (unheard of at the time) to complete the picture.  Korngold relented, and while he was composing the score in Los Angeles, his Austrian home was broken into by the Nazis.  Korngold ended up making one of the cinema's most iconic scores & grabbing an Oscar for his work; had he not done the picture, it's very likely that the Jewish musician would have died in a concentration camp during World War II.