William Keighley
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Filmography
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Robin Hood (2010)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Plot Characters
Even more telling was the genesis of “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” Michael Curtiz’s Technicolor pageant of 1938, which began, in an early draft, with Robin as a yeoman—and with James Cagney, no less, in line to play him—but cranked him up the ranks until, in the finished film, he became Sir Robin of Locksley, immortalized by a beaming Errol Flynn.
The other night, Turner Classic Movies aired the evergreen 1938 classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood" ( Errol Flynn in staggering three-strip Technicolor, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley) and followed up with the first screen version of the Sherwood Forest legend I ever saw, as well as the sourest Robin Hood film yet made.
The definitive screen Robin will forever remain Errol Flynn, whose 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood merely ranks among the two or three greatest action-adventure films ever made.
The logic holds up for all of ten or fifteen seconds, until you remember that pretty much every major previous film of the story opens before Robin Hood begins his career of outlawry: just off the top of my head, the 1922 Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks, the magnificent 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood , and the dismally campy - but, alas, culturally significant - 1991 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves each opens with the story of how Robin Hood and his Merrie Men came into existence, which rather makes this 2010 Robin Hood not so much a "prequel" as a "first act stretched out to 140 unfathomably punishing minutes".
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Directed by Rian Johnson
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Visuals
One long shot even brings to mind a sword fight in Michael Curtiz's “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Directed by Peter Jackson
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Visuals
Take the best things about “Conan the Barbarian”, “Braveheart” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, filter them through the manic energy Peter Jackson brought to his “Dead-Alive”, match it with resources usually only accessible to the likes of Lucas and Spielberg, and you’ve got some of the most breath-taking set pieces ever crafted.
But when Merida follows the little blue glow of the will-o'-the-wisps into the forest, or when she fixes her arrow on a target (in an archery contest that echoes The Adventures of Robin Hood) or tugs restlessly at a lock of hair dangling loose from her wimple, her purpose and poise become the film's - and it catches fire.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Visuals
Meanwhile, Verbinski is at the helm, having fun splashing around in everything from Cecil B. DeMille epics to The Adventures of Robin Hood to the aforementioned Raiders of the Lost Ark and wraps it all up in a sunny afternoon, a refreshing swim and a trip to Disneyland.
Other legendary heroes have their classic Hollywood incarnations, from The Adventures of Robin Hood to The Mark of Zorro , but no comparable Arthurian classic ever came out of Hollywood.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Directed by Peter Weir
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Themes
The biggest drawback I found in the film was its inability to satisfy fully the demands of being an outright swashbuckler like "The Adventures of Robin Hood" or "The Sea Hawk" or a straightforward epic in the tradition of "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia."
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Directed by Rupert Sanders
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Plot
Rupert Sanders’s big fantasy lumbers at first, as if trying to cram The Adventures of Robin Hood into Lord of the Rings.
National Treasure (2004)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
influenced by The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Themes
The finest adventure movies have an effortless feel; "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Princess Bride" and a handful of other classics flow flawlessly from kinetic adventure to kissing scene to plot stuff...and the audience never once thinks about looking at their collective watch.
With Flynn having seen success in WB's "Captain Blood," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and "The Adventures of Robin Hood," RKO looked for a comparable star and found not one but three in Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the son of the silent-screen star.