the adventures of robin hood personal opinion
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The Adventures of Robin Hood" was made with sublime innocence and breathtaking artistry, at a time when its simple values rang true. In these cynical days when swashbucklers cannot be presented without an ironic subtext, this great 1938 film exists in an eternal summer of bravery and romance. We require no Freudian subtext, no revisionist analysis; it is enough that Robin wants to rob the rich, pay the poor and defend the Saxons not against all Normans, only the bad ones: "It's injustice I hate, not the Normans."
The movie involved a couple of firsts: The first Warner Bros. film shot in the three-strip Technicolor process, and the first of 12 times Flynn would be directed by Michael Curtiz. It was the fifth of eight films that Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland would make together.
It is a triumph of the studio system. The producer, Hal B. Wallis, was the most creative executive on the Warner Bros. lot, and when the studio's biggest star,James Cagney, walked off angry and left "Robin Hood" without a star, Wallis had the clout and daring to cast Flynn in the role--Flynn, a young man from Tasmania with only one Hollywood hit, "Captain Blood." It was Wallis who decided to use the new and expensive Technicolor process, Wallis who fired an early writer who wanted to dispense with Maid Marian, Wallis who was powerful enough to replace the original director, William Keighley, with Curtiz--because Keighley fell ill, according to one story, or because Wallis wanted Curtiz to pump up the action scenes, according to another. Keighley did most of the outdoor scenes, Curtiz did most of the studio shooting.
The result is a film that justifies the trademark Glorious Technicolor. "They just don't make movies with this level of tonal saturation any more," writes the British critic Damien Cannon. Consider the opulent tapestries of the castle interiors, and reds and golds and grays and greens of Milo Anderson's costumes, the lush greens of Sherwood Forest (actually the studio ranch at Chico, Calif.). The cinematographers, Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio, were using the original three-strip Technicolor process, which involved cumbersome cameras and a lot of extra lighting, but produced a richness of color that modern color films cannot rival.
For all of its technical splendor, however, the film would not be a masterpiece without the casting--not just of Flynn and de Havilland, who are indispensable, but also of such dependable Warners' supporting stars as Claude Rains, as the effete Prince John; Basil Rathbone, as the snaky Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette and Alan Hale as (respectively) Will Scarlett, Friar Tuck and Little John, the fearless Merry Men. Unlike modern films where superstars dominate every scene, the Hollywood films of the golden era have depth in writing and casting, so the story can resonate with more than one tone.