ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE - DVD review

OK, forget about Errol Flynn's pageboy hairpiece, admittedly a difficult obstacle to overcome but not entirely impossible, and, Doug Fairbanks notwithstanding, you get the most swashbuckling hero in the history of movies.

In fact, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" from 1938 may be the most exciting retelling of any vintage legend ever filmed, an almost perfect blend of adventure, romance, and high good humor. That it took nearly six-and-a-half years after the introduction of DVDs for the film to make it to disc is a remarkable oversight, but now that the DVDs are here, the wait has been well worthwhile. Warner Brothers have done up the film in one of their choice "Warner Legends" two-disc special editions, with newly restored and remastered picture and sound. It's a swashbuckling treasure.

Hair styles aside, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is as nearly perfect a costume action epic as one could hope for. Flynn was the perfect leading man; the supporting cast is equally distinguished; the directors, two of them, keep the pace moving along at a healthy clip; the scenery and costumes are sometimes breathtaking; and the musical score, art direction, and editing all won Academy Awards. If the romance seems just a bit stilted today, it's the film's only minor drawback. This is mostly fun for everyone, young and old.

I mentioned Doug Fairbanks, who essayed the Robin Hood role earlier, but Flynn eclipses even the great silent-screen star in his spirited daring-do. Although Flynn professed to have been bored with the role, no one could handle a sword, fly from a chandelier, or charm a lady quite like Flynn, who came to the part after playing similar roles in "Captain Blood," "The Prince and the Pauper," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and you might say a similar role in real life insofar as charming the ladies was concerned. The term "In Like Flynn" was not invented for nothing. As a movie hero, Flynn couldn't be better: Tall, slim, dashing, impossibly handsome, and unlike a certain boy-next-door American who portrayed Robin more recently, Flynn was an Australian born in Tasmania who had lived in England and had a proper accent, a characteristic not lost on Mel Brooks when he made "Men in Tights." One can hardly imagine the studio's first choice, cocky little Jimmy Cagney in the part, but serendipity struck when Cagney was unavailable and Flynn stepped in. The world has been safe for swashbucklers ever since.

The supporting cast is no less felicitous. The beauteous Olivia de Havilland plays the beauteous Maid Marian, coy, flirtatious, and a year away from the much more prime Melanie in "Gone With the Wind." Basil Rathbone is the consummate villain, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the actor also a year away from his most famous continuing role, Sherlock Holmes, starting with "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Here Rathbone is the very epitome of the evildoer and every bit the match for Robin. Warner Brothers standby Claude Rains is the corrupt and somewhat effete Prince John, trying his best to usurp the throne in the absence of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Heart. Eugene Pallette is the Friar Tuck I grew up with, and he's still the only person I can picture in the role. Likewise, Alan Hale is the only Little John I can imagine, a role he played in three different motion picture versions of "Robin Hood"; although today's younger generation may be more familiar with his son, Alan Hale, Jr., as the skipper in "Gilligan's Island." Melville Cooper plays the comically sniveling High Sheriff of Nottingham, and Ian Hunter is the noble Richard. Patric Knowles as Will Scarlett is the odd-man-out, never quite establishing himself so indelibly in one's mind. The studio had wanted David Niven for Scarlett, but he was unavailable. Our loss.

William Keighley was the original director of the film. He had directed Flynn in "The Prince and the Pauper" the year before, and WB expected big things of him. However, when the rushes began coming in, the studio felt the action scenes lacked requisite zip; so they brought in veteran Michael Curtiz, who had directed Flynn in "Captain Blood" (1935), "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936), and "The Perfect Specimen" (1937), to take over. They were right; Keighley did fine with some of the dramatic encounters, but Curtiz was ideal managing the derring-do.

Most of the picture was made on the Warner Brothers lot, as might be expected, with the big soundstages utilized to their fullest for things like the banquet scene. But the outdoor settings in Sherwood Forest needed a more convincing aspect, and WB found it in a number of Southern California locations and one Northern California spot, Chico's Bidwell Park, the second-largest municipal park in the country, which later lent its presence to "Gone With the Wind." If you ask a Californian what the little town of Chico is most noted for, the respondent will probably mention the State University, Velveeta, and Bidwell Park. Don't ask; do a Google search on Chico and Velveeta.

Then there were the Oscars, well deserved for the film's music (Eric Wolfgang Konngold), art direction (Carl Jules Weyl), and editing (Ralph Dawson, who may be as responsible as anyone for the movie's fast action and excitement).

Whether or not you're familiar with this particular "Robin Hood," you'll find everything here you always remembered about the legend: Robin's fight with Little John, Friar Tuck's rotund rascality, the rescue from the gallows, the romance, the swordplay, even the famous splitting of the arrow, a feat reputedly done with no special effects! "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is, indeed, the quintessential movie swashbuckler.

Video:
The movie was among the earliest to use the three-strip Technicolor process, and thanks to Warner Brothers' immaculate restoration the image looks almost as good today as it probably did when it was new. After watching the trailer for it, I was a little afraid the colors were going to be too gaudy, but, in fact, while they are bright, they are quite natural and realistic. Definition is a tad on the soft side, though. Of more importance, there are zero age marks, scratches, lines, spots, or flecks whatever, I assume their having been eliminated in the refurbishment. One notices grain in darker scenes and against wide, flat backdrops; and haloes and moiré effects practically never. A fairly high bit rate ensures the transfer is clean and free from digital artifacts.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital single-channel monaural sound is slightly hard and edgy, with a bit of background noise in quieter sections at higher volume. Korngold's dazzling musical score could use more mid and lower bass to fill it out, as well as a bit more range. Still, the sound has the advantage of being clear, making dialogue easy to understand. While dynamics and frequency response are understandably limited, it's not as much as one might expect. Remember, this was 1938, little more than a decade after the introduction of sound to pictures. Given the circumstances, the audio comes off pretty well.

Extras:
As usual, this Warner Brothers' Special Edition two-disc set contains more bonus materials than one can appreciate at a single sitting. Indeed, the bonus items last over twice as long as the main feature. On disc one we find the movie itself, newly restored and remastered, with English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles. Also on the first disc are an audio commentary with film historian Rudy Behlmer; a music-only track showcasing Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Oscar-winning score; and a "Warner Night at the Movies 1938" introduced by Leonard Maltin that includes a vintage newsreel, a musical short subject from Freddie Rich and His Orchestra, a Merrie Melodies cartoon, "Katnip Kollege," and a theatrical trailer for another Warner hit of the day, "Angels With Dirty Faces." The first disc is rounded off with a cast and crew listing, twenty-nine scene selections, and an Errol Flynn trailer gallery with trailers from eleven of the actor's most-famous films. Whew! And that's just for starters.

Disc two contains the longer stuff. First and most important is a new, sixty-fifth anniversary documentary on the making of the classic, "Welcome to Sherwood: The Story of the Adventures of Robin Hood," with historians, writers, and film buffs Rudy Behlmer, Leonard Maltin, Robert Osborne, Paula Sigman, and Bob Thomas, Korngold expert John Mauceri, and art director Gene Allen. It's fifty-five minutes long and takes the viewer through every stage of the film's production from casting to final screenings. Probably the second most-important bonus element is a sixty-minute documentary on the coming of color to the movies, "Glorious Technicolor," the story of the evolution of the Technicolor process, hosted by Angela Lansbury. It, too, is divided into chapters for easy access. Next is an eight-minute series of outtakes narrated by film historian Rudy Behlmer, plus a segment called "Breakdowns of 1938" that provides fourteen minutes worth of flubs and bloopers from various films of the period. "Robin Hood Through the Ages" is a seven-minute look at Robin Hood's earlier screen adaptations, most particularly the 1922 Douglas Fairbanks silent classic. Then there's "A Journey to Sherwood Forest," thirteen minutes worth of on-location, behind-the-scenes home movies made during the film's shooting. Two classic Looney Tunes cartoons that parody Robin Hood follow, "Rabbit Hood" with Bugs Bunny and "Robin Hood Daffy" with Daffy Duck. Lastly, there are some vintage short subjects, "Cavalcade of Archery" and "The Cruise of the Zaca," followed by a segment called "Splitting the Arrow" that includes historical art, costume designs, scene concepts, cast and crew pictures, and the like.

Parting Thoughts:
"The Adventures of Robin Hood" has been called "A splendid adventure story, rousingly operatic in treatment" (Leslie Halliwell, "Halliwell's Film Guide"), "Cinematic pageantry at its best" ("Variety"), "One of the most splendid entertainments ever devised" (David Shipman, "The Story of Cinema"), "The quintessential swashbuckler" (Steven H. Scheuer, "Movies on TV"), "The definitive swashbuckler" ("Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide"), "To most film buffs...the Robin Hood" (John Eastman, "Retakes"), "Among the very best adventure films" (Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, "Video and DVD Guide"), "The stuff of which Saturday afternoon dreams were made" (Scott Meek, "Time Out Film Guide"), and "the greatest costume adventure of all time" (Danny Peary, "Guide for the Film Fanatic").

They're absolutely correct.