STACK #169 Nov 2018

EXTRAS FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

was playing a corpse, followed by a few more undistinguished minor roles. But when actor Robert Donat unexpectedly dropped out of the starring role of Captain Blood (1935) two days before filming was due to start, the virtually unknown Flynn was hastily cast in the lead role. The film opened in December 1935 to excellent reviews and the public, too, immediately took to the handsome, athletic Flynn and his beautiful co-star, Olivia de Havilland, making the movie a box office hit. Warner’s now found to their complete surprise that they had a first-rate swashbuckling actor under contract. The studio cast him in two more “swashbuckler” productions, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and The Prince and the Pauper (1937), which both proved popular with moviegoers. As a consequence, when it was decided to resurrect the Robin Hood film, there was now only one actor on the Warner lot for the lead role – Errol Flynn. With a fine screenplay based upon the ancient Robin Hood legends and Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel, Ivanhoe, it was decided by the executive producer, Hal B. Wallis, to film it in three strip Technicolor, making it at the time the most expensive film made by Warner Bros. Wallis assigned William Keighley, who had delivered for the studio a number of impressive gangster films, to direct the prestigious Technicolor epic. But following several weeks of shooting, the studio executive, after viewing Keighley’s daily rushes, considered there to be a too light-hearted approach to the material and a lack of input in his action scenes. The overall tone as a robust adventure film was missing and the production was falling well behind schedule. A concerned Wallis made a command decision and replaced Keighley with Michael Curtiz, but allowed Keighley to receive a co-director credit. Curtiz, who had directed both Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade , immediately brought the scope and action the production needed. This resulted in a

The Adventures of RobinHood (1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

T he legend of Robin Hood, a noble English outlaw and a champion of the poor who fought against the forces of tyranny and injustice, has been passed down through the centuries. Was there a historical figure behind the legend? Probably not. The western cultural myth of Robin and his Merry Men was no more than a voice of Saxon peasants in social protest – through songs and ballads – against the landowning gentry, the majority of whom were descendants of the Norman invaders. In 13th century England, the name “Robehod” was applied to any man who had been outlawed and was simply a generic name for outlaws, of which there were many. Therefore, the true identity of Robin Hood – if indeed he did exist – has probably been obscured by myth and legend. Nevertheless, the medieval legends of Robin Hood have furnished Hollywood with an abundance of material for almost a hundred years. A number of short silent films about the noble brigand were produced in the early 1900s but it was the 1922 Douglas Fairbanks silent version, directed by Alan Dwan, that set the cinema archetype. Almost nothing of the legend appears in this version and although the characters, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, the fair Maid Marian, and other familiar figures appear, they are all relatively unimportant roles. The accent of the film was on the chivalrous deeds of Robin Hood and the incredible acrobatic skills of Fairbanks. However, Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood, which cost $1.4 million, a colossal sum for a silent film, was unique in every respect and a major box-office winner. But the definitive and most enduring cinematic image of Robin Hood came sixteen years later in the Warner Bros. production The

there was now only one actor on the Warner lot for the lead role – Errol Flynn

Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), starring the dashing Errol Flynn. In 1935, Warner Bros. decided to bring Robin Hood back to the screen with a brand-new storyline. James Cagney was announced for the lead role, but the tough guy actor became embroiled in a bitter contract dispute with studio head Jack Warner that led to him being suspended. Subsequently, the Robin Hood project was shelved. That same year a 25-year- old Tasmanian actor by the name of Errol Flynn was contracted to the Warner studios. He was at the time just a young hopeful contract player whose first appearance for the studio

Errol Flynn as Robin Hood with Patric Knowles asWill Scarlett

024

NOVEMBER 2018

jbhifi.com.au