Take a look back at an old trailer…
England! It looks remarkably like Southern California! But never mind: Look, it’s Errol Flynn! With a little moustache! As the mightiest adventurer ever! *swoon*
Makes me think of that Jimmy Buffett song:
That’s why I wish I had a pencil-thin mustache
the Boston Blackie kind, or a
two-toned Ricky Ricardo jacket,
And an autographed picture of Andy Divine.Oh, I could be anyone I wanted to be,
Maybe suave Errol Flynn or the Sheik of Araby.
The Adventures of Robin Hood is available on DVD in Region 1 from Amazon.com and from Amazon.ca and in Region 2 from Amazon U.K.
To be honest, I remember being slightly (and perhaps unfairly) underwhelmed by this film–but only because I saw it immediately after Captain Blood, which I thought was better.
I remember seeing it when I was still in high school, spending most of my 20s wondering if it was as good as I remembered, then saw it again on cable in the wake of the Kevin Costner version and found it remarkably more watchable than the more modern version. But then I never saw Captain Blood. ;-)
Plus an excerpt from this flick turns up in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. You can’t ask for a bigger endorsement than that.;-)
I think you’re missing out, Tonio. :-) It was Errol Flynn’s first starring role, and man, what a start.
The Rafael Sabatini novel is great, too. Yay swashbuckling pirates!
This is still the Robin Hood to beat. Historically inaccurate, obviously shot in SoCal . . . but it’s hard to care, because it’s such an exuberant old-school adventure. Just look at the vivid technicolor bursting from the screen, then go look at the grim monochrome of the trailers for the new Scott/Crowe Robin Hood. Tough to compare.