What better way to hit the half-way milestone in the 2010 Flynnfest than to watch The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 classic, definitive Errol Flynn role against which all future Robin Hoods (Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe) would be measured? Or to put it another way, who can watch any Robin Hood movie without mentally stacking it up against the 1938 Errol Flynn classic?
Errol Flynn. Olivia DeHavilland. Basil Rathbone as Robin's nemesis, and the best sword dueling of any Flynn swashbuckling movie. Claude Rains as one truly evil Prince John. And some unintentional directing success. The original director assigned to the film was William Keighley, who was selected because of his expertise in shooting in Technicolor, which explains the outstanding color and scenery in the movie. But after looking at the dailies, the studio decided that Keighley wasn't all that great at filming action scenes, and replaced him with Michael Curtiz, with directions to recreate his Captain Blood legacy as the best action movie director in Hollywood. The result - classic stuff!
I found The Adventures of Robin Hood at the Des Moines library, but not until after I had already ordered online it off Ebay for only a couple of bucks from Hong Kong. What did I get for my Hong Kong version. good quality DVD - not a cheap bootleg copy. But even better - The Adventures of Robin Hood dubbed into Mandarin Chinese. OMG - that alone is worth the price of admission, in particular the high squeaky Chinese voice tagged on to Claude Rains. Strangely, weirdly, wonderfully hilarious.
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