Fans up at Modesto drove Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn to take refuge in their rooms. The stars, in location for Dodge City, tried to eat in the hotel coffee shop, but admirers pushed in a plate glass window in on them. A jagged hunk of glass just missed Flynn’s nose and landed spear-like in his steak.
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BTW, This incident likely occurred at one of the best hotels in downtown Modesto (Hotels Covell, Hughson, or Modesto), on one of the very streets (10th or 11th Street) where George Lucas later cruised cars as a teenager, as famously depicted in American Graffiti. … Though a relatively small, California Central Valley town, Modesto was nationally-renowned for it’s architecture.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2018 10:30am: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938, dir by Michael Curtis, 35mm, Warner Brothers, USA)
Yeah, that’s right: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. No one has ever
come close to the swash-buckling joy and pure cinematic ecstasy of
Michael Curtiz’s 1938 masterpiece starring Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains, and Basil Rathbone.
If you’ve never seen this version of the movie, you’ve never seen ROBIN HOOD. The movie quite possibly served as a single movie film school for much of the visual language of Steven Spielberg. Sword fights are played almost exclusively in shadow against walls. Action sequences are filled with bursts of expertly choreographed movement to and from the camera. But the whole movie holds together because of the glue of the great charismatic performances from all its leads.
Widely celebrated, director Michael Curtiz had a ridiculously talented grasp of cinematic language, blocking, action, style. If one wants to learn how to make a rip-roaring adventure movie, one studies Michael Curtiz. And this programmer suspects that Steven Spielberg spent a lot of time studying Curtiz before making such swashbucklers as JAWS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.
Join us for 102 minutes of pure adventurous joy as lovable rogue Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) romances the beautiful and clever Maid Marion (the luminous Olivia De Havilland), fights the corruption of the selfish Prince Guy (the ever reliable scoundrel, Claude Rains) and crosses swords with the nefarious and murderous Sir Guy (Flynn’s regular foil, Basil Rathbone).
Filled with classic sequences of irrepressible energy and verve, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is one of the all-time great adventure movies.
“When I was a kid, my favorite superhero was Errol Flynn, the actor. He played Robin Hood, he played Captain Blood… He was the best guy in the world with two guns, but he was always smiling and cheerful and rescuing women. I used to leave the theater with an imaginary sword looking for women to rescue. I can think of nothing more fun than spending your life rescuing women.”
-Rotten Tomatoes asked Stan Lee “Now, would you say that Errol Flynn’s movies may have influenced some of your work? ”
Stan Lee answered: “Absolutely. Errol Flynn was my god. I wanted to be Errol Flynn. I wanted to be Errol Flynn, and I used to — I mention this to people — I used to… I was about ten years old, I don’t know. I’d walk out of the theater after an Errol Flynn movie; I’d have a crooked little smile on my face, the way I thought he smiled, and an imaginary sword at my side, and I’d be hoping that I could find some bully picking on a little girl so I could come to her rescue, you know?”
-The 1965 Marvel Comics character Fandral, a companion of the Norse God Thor and a member of the Warriors Three, was based on the likeness of Flynn by co-creator Stan Lee. Actor Joshua Dallas, who played the character in Thor, based his portrayal on Flynn.
“On the news that FilmStruck has been struck down, fans — including Hollywood directors Barry Jenkins, Guillermo del Toro and Rian Johnson — vented their shock, sadness and anger on social media.”
“FilmStruck will cease operations on Nov. 29 after two years in operation, Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced Friday.”
“The service hosted hundreds of classic, arthouse, indie and foreign films.”
“On Friday, the FilmStruck site posted this message: “We regret to inform you that FilmStruck will be shutting down. Our last day of service will be November 29, 2018, and we are currently no longer enrolling new subscribers. All current FilmStruck subscribers will receive an email with details about your account and the refund process as applicable.”
“The question that now remains hovering in the air is where are the film connoisseurs and the film fans of the future going to encounter the classics of yester-year, the films which still routinely inspire today’s directors.”
Halloween was yesterday. Time to put away the costumes.
And time for a “Time to Put Away the Costumes” story from the days of Robin Hood.
November 1, 1938
“Behind the Makeup”
“Attendants in the Warner Brothers Studio wardrobe department are storing away
the armor worn by soldiers in the movie Robin Hood. Between each suit
of mail goes a generous number of moth balls. The moth balls are necessary
because movietown armor is made of wool, painted to look like armor.”
– Erskine Johnson, Los Angeles Examiner
This film will never go in moth balls, but its woolen armor did, as reported eighty years ago today.
