THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD: Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1938) Warner Home Video

A plushily padded aberration from the usual ‘ripped from the headlines’ format evolved as the Warner Bros. ‘in house’ style throughout the 1930’s, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) remains one of the studio’s most ebullient and celebrated costume epics, and, the film for which Errol Flynn’s enduring reputation as the ultimate swashbuckler will likely remain inviolate for as long as costume period super stars endear. The Adventures of Robin Hood is not at all the sort of picture Jack Warner would have endeavored to make, even a scant 3 years earlier; the Warner grit and gauze focused most readily then on a spate of gangster pictures, usually to star Cagney, Raft and Bogart, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, a franchise of Depression era themed musicals, choreographed by the incomparable Busby Berkeley. Flynn’s arrival at the studio in 1934 was met with immediate excitement from the top brass. Indeed, Flynn represented a startling departure from the status quo in the studio’s ‘murderer’s row’ of mean heavies and violence-prone sadists. With his chiseled good looks and athletic prowess, decidedly invigorating to the female patron, Flynn practically single-handedly ushered in the era of the formidable leading man on the Warner back lot. In contemporary clothes, he cut an elegant figure. But in a cod piece and tights Flynn was reborn as the dashing rogue of every young maiden’s daydream. He seemed to defy the effeteness of such costuming, his rugged charm and devilish appeal emerging full-throttled as magnificent masculinity. So, it only made sense that Flynn, having reinvigorated the period swashbuckler at Warner Bros. with 1935’s Captain Blood, should play the grandest rapscallion of them all – Sir Robin of Locksley; better known to the world as Robin Hood. Not so, as Cagney had been first on Warner’s list of ‘usual suspects’ to play the avenging crusader in green.

Robin Hood had very much been on the mind of producer/director, Michael Curtiz, who petitioned loudly for Warner to invest a considerable sum to bring The Adventures of Robin Hood to the screen. This would be the studio’s first great attempt to fashion a Technicolor masterpiece; the 3-strip process, expensive to say the least (one could expect to double a movie’s budget simply by shooting it in Technicolor) and far from foolproof. While indie producer, David O. Selznick had had some success with the original A Star is Born (1937), a goodly sum of other Technicolor product made during this period had miserably failed to turn a profit. Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935 adaptation of Becky Sharp was a disaster for RKO while Selznick’s own, Garden of Allah (1936) proved a costly misfire. Largely thanks to Selznick’s refusal to give up on the process, and also, the faith exhibited in it by Walt Disney – who produced virtually all of his Silly Symphony cartoon shorts from 1934 onward in Technicolor, and, with the process improving in leaps and bounds, Jack Warner elected to explore its gimmick on The Adventures of Robin Hood – hedging his bets with a solid screenplay from Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller. Through extensive research of the Robin Hood mythology, Raine and Miller concocted a narrative reality all their own, indulging in creative license to further muddy whatever waters of truth about this legendary figure previously existed. For many today, Flynn’s incarnation of the ambitious rapscallion, smiling from ear to ear, feathered cap cocked across his brow, remains the embodiment of Robin Hood, and history – reinvented elsewhere or otherwise proven as truthful – be damned.

Produced at an estimated cost of $2 million, The Adventures of Robin Hood was, by far, the most expensive movie yet to be made on the Warner back lot. A pause here, in admiration of the old-time studio moguls in general, and Jack L. Warner in particular, for their collected courage, foresight and ability to take a gamble on achieving artistry through a decidedly blind leap of faith. Well…perhaps, not so blind. Flynn had proven himself a money-maker for the studio. And, on The Adventures of Robin Hood he would be re-teamed with Olivia de Havilland, with whom Flynn was, by now, carrying on a very torrid love affair. For de Havilland, the passion was pure; the actress, many years removed from the making of the movie, recalling how, after a rather ardent kiss that seemed to go on forever, “Mr. Flynn had a little trouble with his tights.”  And while much has been written – both in glowing praise and derogatorily about the girth of Flynn’s ‘other sword’ – the amusement of witnessing one of Hollywood’s he-men befallen by a sudden attack of ‘excitement’ for his female costar, sent minor laughter through the rafters on the set. There is much to be said of the caustic chemistry between de Havilland’s Maid Marian and Flynn’s elegant scoundrel – the pair, indulging in Raine and Miller’s loaded exchanges as though going through the genuine machinations of a lover’s quarrel. By all accounts, the couple got on splendidly throughout filming. And further to complement their repartee, Warner surrounded his co-stars with a memorable roster of contract players, as distinguished as Claude Rains, to play the wicked Prince John, and Alan Hale Sr., a beloved among Flynn’s frequent costars, as Little John. In the role of the evil monarch’s right hand, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Basil Rathbone returned as the baddie everyone loved to hate. Only a year later, Rathbone would graduate from stock company menace to the epitome of forthright courage and conviction as Arthur Conan Doyle’s ingenious crime solver, in 2oth Century-Fox’s short-lived launch of the Sherlock Holmes’ franchise. Also, on tap - Melville Cooper, as the befuddled Sheriff of Nottingham, Ian Hunter, as King Richard, the Lionheart, Eugene Palette, an irascible Friar Tuck, and, new to pictures, Patrick Knowles as Will Scarlet.  

Initially, James Cagney was strongly considered for the lead. Indeed, from the stance of pure box office potential, Cagney had the greater cache. But Flynn’s meteoric rise could not be ignored. Moreover, Curtiz lobbied for his participation and, after some debate, was granted Flynn as the picture’s star after Cagney walked out of his studio contract. A lot of The Adventures of Robin Hood was shot outdoors – at a time when Technicolor cameras were housed in clumsy sound proof ‘blimps’, and, the cost of carting cast, crew and such a formidable array of props, lighting and equipment, added considerably to the budget. Nevertheless, the picture has a wonderful outdoorsy feel, thanks to some breathtaking footage photographed by Tony Gaudio, Sol Polito and W. Howard Greene – each, working for the first time in color. Bidwell Park in Chico, California was redressed in heavy vines, its autumn foliage spray-painted green to capture the emerald splendor of Sherwood Forest, with other sequences lensed at ‘Lake Sherwood’ and ‘Sherwood Forest’, aptly named for Douglas Fairbanks’ silent production of Robin Hood (1922). While virtually all interiors were bound to sound stages at the studio, Warner Ranch in Calabasas and the former Busch Gardens in Pasadena became home to the lavishly mounted archery tournament. For this sequence, stunt men and bit players were tricked out in protective metal plates with balsa wood and paid $150 for every arrow shot directly into them by professional archer, Howard Hill. The archery tournament is also notable for a trick shot performed by Hill in Flynn’s stead; as Robin, splitting the arrow of Philip of Arras, who has already struck the bullseye. In his biography, My Days with Errol Flynn, close personal friend, Buster Wiles described how the effect was achieved; the offending arrow, much larger and sporting a wider, flat head, fired along a wire into the already lodged, but hollow bamboo arrow, lodged in the bullseye.

Arguably, Robin Hood’s pièce de résistance is its orchestral score, composed by Eric Wolfgang Korngold. For nearly the movie’s entire 102 mins. Korngold fills the screen with a glorious musical bridge, interpolated by highly romanticized and adventuresome cues; his inspiration, drawing much from latter-day nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Germanic symphonic tone poems, influenced by a Wagnerian leitmotif. Korngold composed the score, almost in its entirety, without first seeing a rough cut of the picture, relying intuitively on his own sense of passion for the character of Robin Hood and not the movie, which he felt was out of his league as a rank actioner. Korngold once referred to his film scores as ‘operas without singing’ - large-scale symphonic works that, in retrospect, established that plush sound that became vintage Hollywood film scores in totem. Korngold’s orchestral offerings for The Adventures of Robin Hood earned him his second Oscar. A fascinating postscript: Korngold’s reluctance to, at first commit to the project, but his eventual acquiescence, meant he had to leave his beloved home in Vienna to work in Hollywood. While there, the Nazis annexed Austria and with it, Korngold’s home and possessions. Had Korngold remained in Europe, he surely would have suffered horrendously under Nazi occupation.

Co-directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, The Adventures of Robin Hood represents Errol Flynn’s finest hour on the screen as a devil-may-care matinee idol. Certainly, it remains the actor’s most iconic role in a spectacularly vibrant swashbuckling adventure that grows more heartily robust with each passing year. Flynn’s titular outlaw is a fascinating blend of the actor’s own bon vivant personality and Hollywood lore, reconstituted as the mysterious crusader of Sherwood Forest with a devilish twinkle in his eye. Robin steals from the rich to give to the poor – or so the legend goes. Together with Will Scarlett, his antics generate much cause for concern inside the court of Prince John – a wily and ruthless usurper of his brother’s throne. With King Richard taken hostage during one of his bonny crusades, England is being mismanaged by the impish autocrat; Prince John, guarded in his ambitions by the steely-eyed henchman, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, desiring nothing better than to rid the kingdom of Robin’s particular brand of philanthropy. With Richard imprisoned in Austria, Prince John plots to ascend the throne and tax England’s inhabitants to the brink of death. John’s royal ward, Lady Marian Fitzwalte seems oblivious to the Prince’s ruthlessness, though she is not blind to his advances, nor his enterprising pursuit to romantically inveigle her with one of his men – preferably Gisbourne.

After a harrowing confrontation between Robin, who presents the court with a deer he has killed from the royal game reserve (an illegal act), and Prince John, during a feast in the throne room, Robin narrowly escapes capture and returns to Sherwood Forest. On a mission to flush out Robin and his band of merry men, Sir Guy and the High Sheriff of Nottingham are ambushed. Indeed, they are humiliated, stripped to their skivvies, but then released in crude costumes of rags and laurel leaves to return to the palace. There, they each incur the wrath of Prince John. For a time, Marian is forced to remain in Sherwood with Robin. At first unimpressed by his gregarious charm, Marian’s heart is stirred after she witnesses Robin’s humanity toward the needless exiles, poor and starving, to whom Robin has given sanctuary, food and place to live in freedom. From this moment on, Marian steadily grows to admire Robin. She secretly revels in his mockery of Prince John, along with her dutiful lady in waiting, Bess (Una O’Connor) and even assists in Robin’s daring escape from certain death after he is discovered by Prince John during an archery tournament. Learning of a vial plot to capture Robin and his men and put their lot to death, Marian attempts to forewarn them, only to be discovered by Sir Guy. Held captive in the castle tower, Marian awaits her fate or perhaps, rescue.

The latter arrives – predictably enough - in a flurry of crossed swords that remains among the best example of fencing ever put on film. Flynn had not studied fencing prior to his Hollywood tenure. Interestingly enough, Basil Rathbone was the more skilled swordsman; Shakespearean trained, and extremely proficient with a blade. Thus, having already lost to Flynn in Captain Blood, and similarly doomed as the menace of Robin Hood, Rathbone reportedly allowed Flynn his braggadocio on the set, before quietly pulling him aside between takes to remind him, “You may win the fight on screen, but I could easily kill you any day of the week.” Indeed, the battle that occurs from parapet to the dungeon forces Sir Guy and Robin into a duel of death; Robin, narrowly defeating his arch nemesis with vigor, finesse and a pithy retort or two. Having restored the monarchy, Robin is momentarily taken into custody by Prince John – spared his fate when King Richard appears to reclaim the throne of England. Liberated from Prince John’s tyranny, Robin and Marian are reunited – her hand in marriage bestowed upon Robin at the King’s pleasure as the two depart to begin their lives anew in Sherwood Forest.

The Adventures of Robin Hood was a colossal hit for Warner Bros. Indeed, in the year just prior to Selznick’s own Technicolor magnum opus, Gone with the Wind, and MGM’s own glorious foray over the rainbow, Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (both in 1939), The Adventures of Robin Hood briefly towered above virtually all Hollywood’s previous endeavors as ‘the one to beat’ at the box office. Jack Warner’s faith in Technicolor had been affirmed. Interestingly, he would afford Flynn only two other testaments in color before the war; both in 1939 - Dodge City, and, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, before relegating his most bankable male star to the monochromatic world of B&W for the duration. Viewed today, The Adventures of Robin Hood is a peerless and remarkable entertainment. The picture was so wildly popular, it even spawned its own Looney Tunes spoof in 1949 – Rabbit Hood, in which a brief snippet of Flynn, excised from the film, actually appears to challenge Bugs Bunny’s disbelief in his existence. Since the theatrical release of The Adventures of Robin Hood there have been numerous attempts to recapture the exhilarating and adventuresome spirit of this legendary figure; movies, TV shows, anthologies and spoofs to reinterpret and further embellish the legend. Arguably, none recapture the cinematic glory of this Technicolor extravaganza. For once seen, Flynn is forever ingrained as Robin Hood. Every other actor who has attempted the role since falls into the unflattering category of cheaply derived imitation.   

In the mid-1997, The Adventures of Robin Hood was given a meticulous frame-by-frame restoration in readiness for its DVD debut. Alas, when Warner Home Video elected to reissue the movie to Blu-ray in 2009, it did so from the same ‘new Technicolor transfer’ struck for standard def. The Adventures of Robin Hood could certainly use a new 4K scan of these restored elements. While the image is smartly tricked out in Technicolor, portions of it appear slightly soft, with colors that do not appear as bold as one might anticipate. There are moments when the restoration miserably falters, with noticeable age-related artifacts and a considerable amplification of film grain. It should be dully noted, 3-strip Technicolor was ‘generally speaking’ a grain-concealing process. But the image herein frequently looks rough around the edges. Also, there are hints of untoward artificial sharpening and edge effects to render background information unstable. Overall, what was good for DVD has not been great for this Blu-ray. The Adventures of Robin Hood is certainly deserving of better. The 1.0 mono audio is adequate, but occasionally can sound rather strident. When Warner Home Video made Robin Hood available on DVD it created a separate disc for its myriad of extras. And while Blu-ray’s compression ratio is vastly superior to DVD, squeezing an audio commentary, two documentaries (one on the making of the film, the other on the Technicolor process) isolated music scoring sessions, short subjects, a blooper reel, plus an extensive gallery of vintage photographs and press/promo materials and a theatrical trailer, has compromised the bit rate for the feature presentation.  I would sincerely petition WAC to reconsider another Blu-ray remastering effort on The Adventures of Robin Hood, affording one disc for the movie in a new 4K scan, the other, to house its extra content. Its current incarnation does not represent the capabilities of the hi-def format at all. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

5+