Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 24-August-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

y my troth, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is the gayest movie I have ever seen! Not only are Robin and his men exceedingly merry (who knew living in trees, getting shot at daily, and subsisting on animal haunches was such a hoot?), but the movie plays like a 1950s public awareness piece warning boys not to fall in with the wrong crowd. ("Don't fraternize with outlaws! They seem friendly at first, but they'll soon start whacking your backside and demanding piggyback rides!") I don't know how this one got past the Hays Code; maybe it was safe behind the smoke screen of a legend.

"The Adventures of Robin Hood" is a swashbuckling classic, but it's also a very goofy movie, which excuses (I hope) my irreverent intro. It stars the king of both Swash and Buck, Errol Flynn, a bona fide hottie with the uncanny ability of the Old Greats for switching between snarky humor and smoldering melodrama in the blink of an eye. (Or in his case, the display of a killer dimple.) The movie runs through the standard elements of the famous tale in energetic, happy-go-lucky fashion: how Robin of Locksley came to lead a band of men including Little John and Friar Tuck; how they became champions of the oppressed Saxons and sworn enemies of the Norman ruler John (Claude Rains); how they helped King Richard the Lionheart regain his throne; and how Robin met and won the beautiful Marian (Olivia de Havilland), here not a "Maid" but a "Lady" and the king's ward. The one major deviation from the usual telling is that Robin's chief rival is not the Sheriff of Nottingham (who appears as a doughy wimp), but the arrogant Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone), who, of course, fancies Marian for himself.

I didn't love this picture as much as I expected, even though I had the good fortune of seeing a newly restored print on the big screen. Later films that trace their lineage to this one have shown that the mixture of comedy, romance, and action can produce wonderful results — from "The Mark of Zorro" (1940), which actually borrows two actors in identical roles from "Robin Hood," to the ongoing Indiana Jones trilogy — but this movie suffers from an excess of levity. Most of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts, and the few who don't (Robin and Marian, mostly), get by on charisma and beauty. This is partly due to the different acting styles popular in the '30s and today (the forced laughing, for example, probably didn't induce grimaces back then), but not all of the flaccid characterizations can claim this excuse.

That said, however, "Robin Hood" does feature perfectly splendid costumes (although even Flynn barely keeps his dignity in the tights and feathered cap), and the action sequences get the job done, despite looking rusty by our "Matrix"-driven standards. In addition, co-directors William Keighley and Michael Curtiz (the latter of whom directed "Casablanca" four years later) manage to inject some artistic beauty into the mirth and mayhem, including a beautiful shot of dappled light in Sherwood Forest and an image of the shadows of Gisbourne and Robin during their final showdown.

"The Adventures of Robin Hood" was clearly meant to be rollicking matinee fun, a satisfyingly predictable tale of the wisecracking good guy beating the sniveling bad guys and finding true love in Merry Olde England. As lightweight entertainment, it succeeds. But as a true classic, it's a bit of a disappointment. And not just because Robin throws over his longtime companion Will Scarlett for Lady Marian. At least not entirely.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.